Quotes by Women Authors

Travelling is like flirting with life. It's like saying, 'I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station'.

It is not difficult to find a religious justification for killing.

My insides still turn over when he looks at me that certain way.

Judy Blume
Judy Blume
Summer fog. It leached all color and substance from the world, leaving only grays. Lead gray tombstone gray cobweb gray ash gray snot gray dust gray corpse gray. It was unheard-of that there be fog at this time of the year, late August. So it had to be another portent — as dire a one as the death of the One-Handed Warrior. There were many who said that the fog had its origin in the supercooled ashes of the hero: each molecule of his scattered body accreting water vapor, each tiny relic drawing to itself the air's own tears to fashion this wide-spreading shroud over the Many-Colored Land.

When we strike a balance between the challenge of an activity and our skill at performing it, when the rhythm of the work itself feels in sync with our pulse, when we know that what we're doing matters, we can get totally absorbed in our task. That is happiness.

Mothers know the difference between a broth and a consommé. And the difference between damask and chintz. And the difference between vinyl and Naugahyde. And the difference between a house and a home. And the difference between a romantic and a stalker. And the difference between a rock and a hard place.

The method of solving problems by honest confession of one's ignorance is called Algebra.

She had gradually changed her name. "Jane" was too dull. Last year, she'd added a "y", becoming Jayne, which had more personality.

It is an easy thing to call names; any fool is equal to that... and the weapon of vituperation is generally used by those who lack brains for argument or are upon the wrong side.

Martha Finley
Martha Finley
The difficult art I was attempting had, indeed a powerful fascination, before which the past faded, the future receded, and the whole of experience narrowed down to this stretch of glancing, glimmering water, and the fly I was trying to cast across it.

You would not think that birds who have no brain at all could become so friendly. I swear some of them are more intelligent than many humans, but that says more about our fellow beings than it does about the birds.

I shall not tell your husband and you shall not tell my wife." Tell them what?" That you and I were outwitted by a ropma." That would be shamful." Girl, we could never live it down.

When you lock everything down tight so that the pain can't get out, you also keep good stuff from getting in.

I've always thought of this city as Disneyland for adults.... There's no danger of Las Vegas expiring from an excess of good taste.

The trouble with Ian [Fleming] is that he gets off with women because he can't get on with them.

He stomped away like a pint-sized Godzilla looking for Tokyo.

Teenagers are like cats - they have important business that doesn't involve mere humans.

If my hair gets any frizzier, I'll shave it to the scalp. Or light it on fire. Whichever is easier.

No," I said finally. "Slowness in Answering," she said into the handheld. "When's the last time you slept?" "1940" I said promptly, which is the problem with Quickness in Answering.

Connie Willis
Connie Willis
The sport and game of angling is the true means and cause that brings a man into a merry spirit, which makes a flowering age and a long one.

Juliana Berners
Juliana Berners
But one day, the things that make you free start to keep you down.

I have been much afflicted again lately by visitors... and they gave me to understand that if they had had the arranging of the garden it would have been finished long ago - whereas I don't believe a garden is ever finished. They have all gone now, thank heaven.

Elizabeth von Arnim
Elizabeth von Arnim
I've got this image in my head of how I want my life to look, and I have absolutely no idea how to get there. And I'm so scared that I'll make some wrong decision - just one - and everything will get messed up and go wrong -for good.

Darlings of the forest! Blossoming alone When Earth's grief is sorest For her jewels gone - Ere the last snow-drift melts, your tender buds have blown.

Oh, hear Him within you speaking this infinite love, moving like some divine and audible leaven, lifting the sky of the soul with expansions of light, shaping new heights and new depths, and, at your stir of assent, spreading the mountains with flame, filling the hollows with Heaven.