Quotes by Women Novelists

We turn to literature to remedy the loss, to impose some kind of meaningful order on the nonsequential.

Sunday, that day so tedious to the triflers of earth, so full of beautiful reposes of calmness and strength for the earnest and heavenly minded.

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
Life on earth, filled with uncertainty and change, seemed far more difficult than what lay beyond the grave.

I only want to walk a little longer in the cold blessing of the rain, and lift my face to it.

Juliana's a year older than me, but she sometimes seems younger - mostly because she's the opposite of cynical and I'm the opposite of the opposite of cynical.

Thou hast only to follow the wall far enough and there will be a door in it.

In my experience ideology is a lot like religion; it's a belief system and most people cling to it long after it becomes clear that their ideology doesn't describe the real world.

Are you determined to leave me in this world to live without my heart?

People think they have to be good before they can act good. But... it works just as well the other way 'round.

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
A thought experiment courtesy of the Stoics. If you are tired of everything you possess, imagine that you have lost all these things.

Jenny Offill
Jenny Offill
Men and women will forever make gods of others rather than see the god in themselves.

Despite disappointments, the Christian is obligated to pray for the sick because we are bidden to do so and because the crumb of our caring is but a morsel broken from the whole loaf of the Father's infinite and tender love.

I have confidence that God is with us in all things, both tender and tough

Jan Karon
Jan Karon
The familiar was usually invisible; how many people really noticed everything they saw?

A church is an interesting place once you get the parson and the people out of it. Real music can get in then, and a real God! Nothing flibertigibbet about religion then.

Mazo de la Roche
Mazo de la Roche
I myself love getting cookbooks and novels that some congenial person has already tried and liked.

Perfume companies ought to bottle the smell of crisp bacon. Forget pheromones. I'll bet a woman with a little spot of bacon grease behind her ears would attract every male within a five-mile radius.

What arrogance, what stupidity led us to this desolation, to this madness, to this wickedness, to this war, to this death? When this cruel war was over, there will be no more war. It will not happen again, never again. NEVER AGAIN, never again.

Flora Nwapa
Flora Nwapa
In life, periods of solitude were blessings. Dying alone was a bitter curse.

People often choose to misunderstand if it makes life more interesting.

There are those people who love their mothers, just so; and there are those who, out of whatever accident of temperament have to be in love with them.

A fruit is not afraid of its own weight. It grows into its skin fully. It is whole, each part of its body equally alive.

If there was no fear, how could there be comfort? Or courage?