Quotes by Women Authors

Jane Austen

J. K. Rowling

Agatha Christie

Virginia Woolf

Emily Dickinson

Helen Keller

Colette

A persuadable temper might sometimes be as much in favour of happiness as a very resolute character.

My desk, most loyal friend
thank you. You've been with me on
every road I've taken.
My scar and my protection.

Marina Tsvetaeva

When all is said and done, monotony may after all be the best condition for creation.

Lady Margaret Sackville

Expecting to be able to get rid of the competitive drive, first of all, flies in the face of human nature — and little girls certainly have this drive, as much as little boys do, or at least the little girls I have observed in my immediate family have it.

To write weekly, to write daily, to write shortly, to write for busy people catching trains in the morning or for tired people coming home in the evening, is a heartbreaking task for men who know good writing from bad. They do it, but instinctively draw out of harm's way anything precious that might be damaged by contact with the public, or anything sharp that might irritate its skin.

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is stoned to death.

To feel admiration for a man all through one's married life would, I think, be excessively tedious.

Agatha Christie

Five minutes! Zounds! I have been five minutes too late all my life-time!

Reality even when it is sad is better than illusions. Illusions are at the mercy of any winds that blow. Real happiness must come from within, from a fixed purpose and faith in one's fellow men.

I tasted - careless - then -
I did not know the Wine
Came once a World - Did you?
Oh, had you told me so -
This Thirst would blister - easier - now

Emily Dickinson

Many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are.

So now, whenever I despair, I no longer expect my end, but some bit of luck, some commonplace little miracle which, like a glittering link, will mend again the necklace of my days.

Love and war, it seemed, worked by the same rules. One had to hurry, before the fires flared out.

A knife can be a symbol, but it also better be able to cut string. And if it represent cutting free, cutting loose, in the story's beginning, it better not be used to prop up a bookcase and then forgotten later on.

I love a lot of things, a whole lot of things
Like My cousin comes to visit and you know he's from the South
'Cause every word he says just kind of slides out of his mouth
I like the way he whistles and I like the way he walks
But honey, let me tell you that I LOVE the way he talks

Eloise Greenfield

Waiting is the most exquisitely painful part of loving someone.

I like people who possess either deep mastery or deep empathy, but not as much as I like those who possess both.

The new one actually reads, but only to pass judgment. This is the way kids learn today. Someone told them how you feel is more important than what you know, and so they think accusations are ideas. This is political correction run amok.

Allegra Goodman

For a woman to be a lesbian in a male-supremacist, capitalist, misogynist, racist, homophobic, imperialist culture, such as that of North America, is an act of resistance.

I love to take something ordinary and make it really special.

At some time in the future scientists, physicians, mediums and healers will have to work together to perfect the science of the whole.

Let's just say you may regret that second piece of cake. Oh my God. Regret cake? Whatever was about to happen must be truly evil.

Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness.

Like most everything, the history of hot air balloons is a history of sex and tragic death.

Kathryn Nuernberger

The closure of the book is an illusion largely created by its materiality, its cover. Once the book is considered on the plane of its significance, it threatens infinity.

Susan Stewart (poet)