Quotes by Women Authors

The law of cause and effect does not hide in the realm of the unexpected when intelligent beings go looking for it.

Gertrude Atherton
Gertrude Atherton
There has been no lack of courage in Ireland; there never is, but even our courage has a fatal quality.

Because its myriad glimmering plumes Like a great army's stir and wave; Because its golden billows blooms, The poor man's barren walks to lave: Because its sun-shaped blossoms show How souls receive the light of God, And unto earth give back that glow I thank him for the Goldenrod.

Lucy Larcom
Lucy Larcom
We can only do what is possible for us to do. But still it is good to know what the impossible is.

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

It is better to remember our love as it was in the springtime.

When I was four I thought everything in TV was just TV, then I was five and Ma unlied about lots of it being pictures of real and Outside being totally real. Now I'm in Outside but it turns out lots of it isn't real at all.

Emma Donoghue
Emma Donoghue
Jane nodded, and she mentally thanked the several-greats-grandmother who had decided she'd rather risk royal displeasure than give up a book.

After she wrote her first two novels:
I thought I'd walk down the street and everybody would know I had written a book. But nobody took any notice of these two novels, and I stopped writing. I felt uneasy for about three years.

Beryl Bainbridge
Beryl Bainbridge
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.

If you're afraid of something, face it. Fear is irrational. The only way to conquer your fear is to stand next to it.

Just remember, I am not going anywhere, he said, still watching her lips. And if you ever try to hide from me, I will not believe you are dead. I will find you. Count on it.

If it's easter than east and wester than west, it must be north.

I think that sometimes the great changes in our lives, the ones that divide time, happen so deep down and silently that we don't even know when they occur......It frequently happens that the seasons of the greatest change are the times that feel the most tranquil, the most suspended, the most...timeless.

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

Maybe sometimes we can only see the truth about ourselves if someone shows us where to look.

Cats are the slipperiest of domestic animals. Thousands of years of genetic coding has taught them to melt into azaleas, lie motionless behind garden gnomes, glide along fence tops, and slink under benches.

So this is one of those times when life is just handing you something, telling you what to do, which way to go. So enjoy it. It'll be fun. I guarantee. I can't guarantee we'll find the goddamn thing, but it'll be interesting. Then if we do find it - if we do- the payoff's huge.

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

Inverted heart,
becomes the testicles
of a man.

Sheri-D Wilson
Sheri-D Wilson
Then I wondered if that's all God ever is—somebody who loves you enough to come back from the dead to visit every now and again. Or if that's all that other people ever are—different faces of God walking around.

Without risk, we are automatons going through our days with no purpose or meaning. We are safer, perhaps, but we are also, ironically, closer to death.

You must not allow yourself to be advised, cautioned, influenced, persuaded

Minnie Maddern Fiske
Minnie Maddern Fiske
I speak of knowledge, sir, which is not the bed-equal of learning... I speak of what comes from learning. I speak of understanding.