“What we do not claim remains invisible. That is why the process of personal transformation — the true work of spiritual growth, whether couched in religious terms or not — is the only antidote to the pernicious effects of society’s backlash against genuine female empowerment.”
“Society programs us, through the subliminal messages of popular culture, to believe that we’re not truly desirable as women unless we adhere to the current standards of physical beauty.”
″[Woman’s] sensibility had been educated for centuries by the influences of the common sitting room. People’s feelings were impressed on her; personal relations were always before her eyes. Therefore, when the middle-class woman took to writing, she naturally wrote novels.”
“By innocence I swear, and by my youth,
I have one heart, one bosom and one truth,
And that no woman has, nor never none
Shall mistress be of it, save I alone.”
“The woman who is truly self-aware knows that her self is a light from beyond this world, a spiritual essence that has nothing to do with the physical world.”
“Denver looked up at her. She did not know it then, but it was the word ‘baby’, said softly with such kindness, that inaugurated her life in the world as a woman”
“I have said before that metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory.”
“But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund’s daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.”
“When a woman’s wave rises she feels she has an abundance of love to give, but when it falls she feels her inner emptiness and needs to be filled up with love.”
“In my arms is a woman who has given me a Skywatcher’s Cloud Chart, a woman who knows all my secrets, a woman who knows just how messed up my mind is, how many pills I’m on, and yet she allows me to hold her anyway. ”
“You could be the most perfect woman on the Lord’s green earth—you’re capable of interesting conversation, you cook a mean breakfast, you hand out backrubs like sandwiches, you’re independent (which means, to him, that you’re not going to be in his pockets)—but if he’s not ready for a serious relationship, he’s going to treat you like a sports fish.”
“We need to talk. For a man, few words are as menacing as those four — especially when a woman is the one saying them and he’s on the receiving end. Those four words can mean only two things to men: either we did something wrong or, worse, you really literally just want to talk.”
“What makes pornography so addictive is that more than anything else in a lost man’s life, it makes him feel like a man without ever requiring a thing of him. The less a guy feels like a real man in the presence of a real woman, the more vulnerable he is to porn.”
“I wasn’t mean; I wasn’t evil. I was nice. And let me tell you, a hesitant man is the last thing in the world a woman needs. She needs a lover and a warrior, not a Really Nice Guy.”
“I have often felt that I would find it more complicated, troublesome and unpleasant to ascertain the feelings by which a woman lives than to plumb the innermost thoughts of an earthworm.”
″ One of the most disappointing things that you, as a woman, could ever go through is falling in love with a man that can’t love you and respect you because he hasn’t learned to love and respect himself yet.”
″ You could be doing everything right; working, cooking, cleaning, great sex...everything. But if it’s for the wrong man, that still won’t be enough to keep him.”
″ A good woman’s love is powerful. Some of you have a good woman’s and will never experience the true power of her love because your inconsistencies prevent her from being able to fully love you the way she wants to. ”
“You will always go into that tent. You will see her scar and wonder where she got it. You will always be amazed at how one woman can have so much black hair.”
“I’d never known it was like this for a woman. Never. We’d always been sent to Aunt Josie’s when Mamma’s time was near. We would stay there overnight, and when we came back, there was Mamma smiling with a new baby in her arms.”
“And once I got old enough for such a thing to be a possibility, he told me that a man must be responsible for any seed he sows, for it’s his duty to take care of a woman and protect her. And if I wasna prepared to do that, then I’d no right to burden a woman with the consequences of my own actions.”
“We think you’ll find that every woman in her heart of hearts longs for three things: to be romanced, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, and to unveil beauty. That’s what makes a woman come alive.”
“That longing in the heart of a woman to share life together as a great adventure-that comes straight from the heart of God, who also longs for this. He does not want to be an option in our lives. He does not want to be an appendage, a tagalong. Neither does any woman. ”
“A woman is a warrior too. But she is meant to be a warrior in a uniquely feminine way. Sometime before the sorrows of life did their best to kill it in us, most young women wanted to be a part of something grand, something important.”
“Instead of asking, ‘What should a woman do—what is her role?’ it would be far more helpful to ask, ‘What is a woman—what is her design?’ and, ‘Why did God place Woman in our midst?”
“A woman in an ugly black dress stood before them. ‘I am your new teacher, Miss Viola Swamp.’ And she rapped the desk with her ruler. ‘Where is Miss Nelson?’ asked the kids. ‘Never mind that!’ snapped Miss Swamp. ‘Open those arithmetic books!’ Miss Nelson’s kids did as they were told.”
“Hari and the other Alibagh villagers stood open-mouthed in amazement: they had not brought along a single woman with them, had not thought it necessary, had been sure that they, the menfolk, could manage it all on their own and the women would only be a nuisance.”
“It was such happiness to her all the hot, long days that followed; to a girl just entering life there can be no purer, deeper feeling of pleasure than that brought by the knowledge that she is influencing for good some man or woman older than herself, more sin-worn and earth-wearied.”
The woman is afraid - the child is not hers but her master’s - but she gives her baby anyway, hoping desperately it will have a life better than her own.
“Now Angelica little knew that the ring which Giglio had given her was a fairy ring: if a man wore it, it made all the women in love with him; if a woman, all the gentlemen.”
“My good woman (for the Fairy was very familiar, and no more minded a Queen than a washerwoman)- my good woman, these people who are following you will be the first to turn against you; and as for this little lady, the best thing I can wish her is a LITTLE MISFORTUNE.”
″ ‘I don’t care who marriage-ring it was,’ cries Angelica. ‘Marry the person who picks it up if she’s a woman; you shan’t marry ME. And give me back MY ring. I’ve no patience with people who boast about the things they give away! I know who’ll give me much finer things than you ever gave me, A beggarly ring indeed, not worth five shillings!’ ”