Female Authors Quotes

“I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are or should be written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.”
― Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

“In much the same way, motherhood has become the essential female experience, valued above all others: giving life is where it's at. "Pro-maternity" propaganda has rarely been so extreme. They must be joking, the modern equivalent of the double constraint: "Have babies, it's wonderful, you'll feel more fulfilled and feminine than ever," but do it in a society in freefall in which waged work is a condition of social survival but guaranteed to no one, and especially not to women. Give birth in cities where accommodation is precarious, schools have surrendered the fight and children are subject to the most vicious mental assault through advertising, TV, internet, fizzy drink manufacturers and so on. Without children you will never be fulfilled as a woman, but bringing up kids in decent conditions is almost impossible.”
― Virginie Despentes, King Kong théorie

“More than anything, I began to hate women writers. Frances Burney, Jane Austen, Elizabeth Browning, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, Virginia Woolf. Bronte, Bronte, and Bronte. I began to resent Emily, Anne, and Charlotte—my old friends—with a terrifying passion. They were not only talented; they were brave, a trait I admired more than anything but couldn't seem to possess. The world that raised these women hadn't allowed them to write, yet they had spun fiery novels in spite of all the odds. Meanwhile, I was failing with all the odds tipped in my favor. Here I was, living out Virginia Woolf's wildest feminist fantasy. I was in a room of my own. The world was no longer saying, "Write? What's the good of your writing?" but was instead saying "Write if you choose; it makes no difference to me.”
― Catherine Lowell, The Madwoman Upstairs

“We have flattered ourselves by inventing proverbs of comparison in matter of blindness,--"blind as a bat," for instance. It would be safe to say that there cannot be found in the animal kingdom a bat, or any other creature, so blind in its own range of circumstance and connection, as the greater majority of human beings are in the bosoms of their families. Tempers strain and recover, hearts break and heal, strength falters, fails, and comes near to giving way altogether, every day, without being noted by the closest lookers-on.”
― Helen Hunt Jackson, Ramona

“I tell you, life is extraordinary. A few years ago, I couldn't write anything or sell anything, I'd passed the age where you know all the returns are in, I'd had my chance and done my best and failed. And how was I to know the miracle waiting to happen around the corner in middle age? 84, Charing Cross Road was no best-seller, you understand; it didn't make me rich or famous. It just got me hundreds of letters and phone calls from people I never knew existed; it got me wonderful reviews; it restored a self-confidence and self-esteem I'd lost somewhere along the way, God knows how many years ago. It brought me to England. It changed my life.”
― Helene Hanff, 84, Charing Cross Road

“That's exactly where you're wrong! Any kind of person can murder. Purely circumstances and not a thing to do with temperament! People get so far -- and it takes just the least little thing to push them over the brink. Anybody. Even your grandmother. I know.”
― Patricia Highsmith, Strangers on a Train

“Have you ever felt in your inmost being, the conscience of others?' again she was trembling, the words were not releasing her. 'It's intolerable you know”
― Simone de Beauvoir, She Came to Stay

“Men don't fight for what is theirs. They work for it and they love it with all their hearts. When they do that, they want for nothing.”
― Rebecca Steinbeck, 69 INCHES AND RISING

“Education for women is something that has plagued the world for a very long time. When I saw this problem firsthand, I knew I had to write about it.”
― Sahndra Fon Dufe

“Nothing means anything but you still have to follow the rules.”
― Scarlett Thomas, The End of Mr. Y

“Right now, I believe I'm a free source of energy whipped into a spiritual being having a human experience. The key word here is: Experience; not Experienced.”
― Helen Edwards, Nothing Sexier Than Freedom

“The companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our minds which hardly any later friend can obtain.”
― Mary Shelley

“Affairs began, drama spread, and traditional, good-old-boy camaraderie was tainted by the temptresses who represented the inconvenience of feminism.”
― Maggie Young, Just Another Number

“You can't exploit a woman who has based her entire career on exploiting herself.”
― Maggie Young

“Is it based on a true story? Yes. However, all names have been changed to protect those who think they are innocent.”
― Helen Edwards

“Penwoman to Posterity.”
― Nancy Rubin Stuart, The Muse of the Revolution: The Secret Pen of Mercy Otis Warren and the Founding of a Nation

“Why call George Sand a wild woman in the publicity for her books? I protest the use of such an inaccurate epithet for such a cultivated and intelligent woman”
― Luisa Capetillo

“[Louisa May Alcott] made no alterations and no copies, for the material upon which she lavished the least time seemed the most successful.”
― Madeleine B. Stern, Louisa May Alcott: A Biography

“Morality has its equations too - they graph the curve of compassion between the quick and the dead.”
― Lloyd Rose

“Creo que la enseñanza solo puede ser satisfactoria si suscita una respuesta en el alumno. De nada sirve la mera información, pues no aporta nada distinto de lo que ya tenías.”
― Agatha Christie

“Si no se puede ser lo que más se desea, es mejor reconocerlo y seguir adelante, en vez de hundirse en lamentaciones vanas e ilusiones.”
― Agatha Christie