Black Female Protagonist Quotes

Listen and listen good, shitbrain. If you ever touch someone I love again, I will shove this cross down your throat and watch you choke on it. You want to know why a Prince of Hell wanted me so bad? Now you do. I'm not a nice girl. I'm a Seer. It is my job to save the people of the world from vultures like you. Now you take that back to whoever your boss is and let him come find me, if he's stupid enough. I'll bury you all if I have to. ~ Kyoko M.

Tuco Medrano, wearing a black ski mask, walked quickly across the busy Bulevar Ignacio Bernardo Norzagaray and put two rounds through the driver side window of the lead truck. The bullets struck Officer Ignacio Reyes in the head, killing him instantly, and sprayed bloody bits of brain matter and bone all over his wide-eyed female partner. ~ Anson Scott

Of the female black authors, I really like Morrison's early books a lot. But she's really become so much a clone of Faulkner. He did it better. ~ Leslie Fiedler

She eyes him warily. Exactly the same way she did when he came into her office
years ago.
It comes into his mind to wonder why she is always so alert in his presence. In
college, he used to think that she was afraid of his intellect, but he's known
for years that this is the last of her worries. At Black Sun Systems, he
figured that it was just typical female guardedness -- Juanita was afraid he was
trying to get her into the sack. But this, too, is pretty much out of the
question.
At this late date in his romantic career, he is just canny enough to come up
with a new theory: She's being careful because she likes him. She likes him in
spite of herself. He is exactly the kind of tempting but utterly wrong romantic
choice that a smart girl like Juanita must learn to avoid.
That's definitely it. There's something to be said for getting older. ~ Neal Stephenson

Before he could decide what to do, he heard a female voice call out, "Pepe? Mack?"
Pepe recognized the voice as belonging to Senora Rodriguez. No, Senora Thompson. There'd been a wedding in late summer. He hurried out to the main part of the barn to see what she wanted.
Senora Thompson stood just inside the entrance, holding the reins of her mare, Bianca, a black beauty with four white stockings and a blaze down her nose her husband had given her after their marriage. ~ Debra Holland

The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.
The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic admiration. ~ Maya Angelou

As well as the [League of Nations] delegates themselves and their suites, there were innumerable campaigners of one sort and another, male and female, clerical and lay, young and old; all with some notion to publicise, some pet solution to offer, some organisation to promote. They gathered in droves, fanning out through the city, and settling in hotels and pensions, from the Lakeside ones down to tiny obscure back-street establishments. Ferocious ladies with moustaches, clergymen with black leather patches on the elbows of their jackets or cassocks and smelling of tobacco smoke, mad admirals who knew where to find the lost tribes of Israel, and scarcely saner generals who deduced prophetic warnings from the measurement of the pyramids; but one and all believers in the League's historic role to deliver mankind painlessly and inexpensively from the curse of war to the great advantage of all concerned. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

When culture only rewards the assertion of group identity (black, female, queer etc.), the silent majority will want its slice of the identitarian pie. They can do identity politics, too; it's called white nationalism. ~ Sohrab Ahrmari

She was black, too, or rather, a delicious shade of café au lait, and this, we were constantly told, represented progression an industry concerned merely with surfaces. (I am dubious: could it not be that, this season, café au lait was the 'in' shade? Have we seen a sudden influx of black women into the industry in Landry's wake? Have our notions of female beauty been revolutionised by her success? Are black Barbies now out-selling white?) ~ Robert Galbraith

With all of my black and withered heart, I love you, my female. ~ J.R. Ward

To speak as black, female, and commercial lawyer has rendered me simultaneously universal, trendy, and marginal. ~ Patricia J. Williams

Years ago I wanted to buy an apartment in New York City. I was a single female - I had gone through my divorce - I had three children, I was in show business and black. It was, like, impossible. ~ Diana Ross

Bekka treated her role has Frankenstein's bride more like an audition to be Brett's bride. Every part of her body had been colored bright kelly green - even parts that her mother had stressed were 'not to be seen by anyone except God and the inside of a toilet bowl.' Instead of wearing a wig, Bekka had teased and then shellacked her own hair into a windblown cone and she'd used female-mustache bleach to create white streaks. Her seams, made of real suture thread, had been attached to her neck and wrists with clear double-sided costume tape because drawing them on with kohl would not have been 'honoring the character.' Her Costume Castle dress had been exchanged for something 'more authentic' from the Bridal Barn. If Brett didn't see his future in her heavily black-shadowed eyes tonight, he never would. Or so she believed. ~ Lisi Harrison

People often ask me if I feel discriminated against as a black female director. I don't. I'm actually offered a ton of stuff. But I only want to direct what I write. And I prefer to focus on black female characters. What's most important to me is to put characters up onscreen who are not perfect, but who are human and flawed. ~ Gina Prince-Bythewood

To Black women, the issue is not whether white women are more or less racist than white men, but that they are racist. If women committed to feminist revolution, be they Black or white, are to achieve any understanding of the charged connections between white women and Black women, we must first be willing to examine woman's relationship to society, to race, and to American culture - as it is, and not as we would ideally have it be. That means confronting the reality of white female racism. Sexist discrimination has prevented white women from assuming the dominant role in the perpetuation of white racial imperialism, but it has not prevented white women from absorbing, supporting, and advocating racist ideology or acting individually as racist oppressors in various spheres of American life. Every women's movement in America, from its earliest origin to the present day, has been built on a racist foundation, a fact which in no way invalidates feminism as a political ideology. The racial apartheid social structure that characterized 19th and early 20th century American life was mirrored in the women's rights movement. The first white women's rights advocates were never seeking social equality for all women. They were seeking social equality for white women. ~ Bell Hooks

It had been only natural that as she developed into a young woman, she would become physically attracted to him. Certainly every other female in Hampshire was. McKenna had grown into a tall, big-boned male with striking looks, his features strong if not precisely chiseled, his nose long and bold, his mouth wide. His black hair hung over his forehead in a perpetual spill, while those singular turquoise eyes were shadowed by extravagant dark lashes. To compound his appeal, he possessed a relaxed charm and a sly sense of humor that had made him a favorite on the estate and in the village beyond. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Unwed white girls who became pregnant in the postwar years were considered psychologically disturbed but treatable, whereas their black counterparts were presumed to be biologically hypersexual and deviant. Historian Rickie Solinger demonstrates that in the 1950s an unwed white girl who became pregnant could go to a maternity home before her pregnancy showed, deliver the baby and give it up for adoption, and return home to her community with no one the wiser. (White parents concocted stories of their daughters being given the opportunity to study for a semester with relatives.) She could then resume the role of the "nice" girl.
Unwed pregnant black girls, on the other hand, were barred from maternity homes; they were threatened with jail or termination of welfare; and they were accused of using their sexuality in order to be eligible for larger welfare checks. Politicians regarded unwed pregnant black girls as a societal problem, declaring--as they continue to declare today--that they did not want taxpayers to support black illegitimate babies, and sought to control black female sexuality through sterilization legislation. ~ Leora Tanenbaum

We are made for goodness. We are made for love. We are made for friendliness. We are made for togetherness. We are made for all of the beautiful things that you and I know. We are made to tell the world that there are no outsiders. All are welcome: black, white, red, yellow, rich, poor, educated, not educated, male, female, gay, straight, all, all, all. We all belong to this family, this human family, God's family. ~ Desmond Tutu

She sorted through the clothes. "Do you mind wearing Emilio's underwear?" She turned back to him with the two different styles that she'd found. "You're about the same size. And they're clean. They were wrapped in a paper package, like from a laundry service."
Max gave her a look, because along with the very nice, very expensive pair of black silk boxers she'd pilfered from Emilio, she'd also borrowed one of his thongs.
"What?" Gina said. It was definitely a man-thong. It had all that extra room for various non-female body parts.
"Don't be ridiculous."
"I'm not," she said, trying to play it as serious. "One, it's been a while, maybe your tastes have changed. And two, these might actually be more comfortable, considering the placement of your bandage and - "
He took the boxers from her.
"Apparently I was wrong." She turned away and started sorting through the pairs of pants and Bermuda shorts she'd grabbed, trying not to be too obvious about the fact that she was watching him out of the corner of her eye. To make sure he didn't fall over.
Right.
After he got the boxers on, he took off the bathrobe and . . .
Okay, he definitely wasn't as skinny as he'd been after his lengthy stint in the hospital. Emilio's pants probably weren't going to fit him, after all. Although, there was one pair that looked like they'd be nice and loose . . . There they were. The Kelly green Bermuda shorts.
Max gave her another one of those you've-got-to ~ Suzanne Brockmann

In the winter of 1987 India was full of iskeems that had gone awry. Agricultural iskeems, political iskeems, economic iskeems, educational iskeems, stop black money iskeems, attract white tourists iskeems, drinkable water iskeems, animal protection iskeems, women's welfare iskeems, nurture children iskeems, don't scan female foetus iskeems, privatization iskeems, medical iskeems, entertainment iskeems, old India iskeems and new India iskeems.
We had mastered the art of nomenclature from the white man.
Grand labels could disguise unforgivable things. ~ Tarun J. Tejpal

The social order of things has demanded an emphasis on the differences between gender that do not in my opinion in fact exist. I'm not going to go around putting pronouns on everything. Things are often deeply compromised by the set of assumptions you bring to the world, which is this black or white, this male or female. ~ Roni Horn

I am the essence of magic, its mysteriousness, its beauty and its ability to make things happen when people couldn't see how! ~ Jenaitre Farquharson

After a while Mary said, "Zsadist?"

"Yeah?"

"What are those markings?"

His frowned and flicked his eyes over to her, thinking, as if she didn't know? But then . . . well, she had been a human. Maybe she didn't. "They're slave bands. I was . . . a slave."

"Did it hurt when they were put on you?"

"Yes."

"Did the same person who cut your face give them to you?"

"No, my owner's hellren did that. My owner . . . she put the bands on me. He was the one who cut my face."

"How long were you a slave?"

"A hundred years."

"How did you get free?"

"Phury. Phury got me out. That's how he lost his leg."

"Were you hurt while you were a slave?"

Z swallowed hard. "Yes."

"Do you still think about it?"

"Yes." He looked down at his hands, which suddenly were in pain for some reason. Oh, right. He'd made two
fists and was squeezing them so tightly his fingers were about to snap off at the knuckles.

"Does slavery still happen?"

"No. Wrath outlawed it. As a mating gift to me and Bella."

"What kind of slave were you?"

Zsadist shut his eyes. Ah, yes, the question he didn't want to answer. For a while it was all he could do to force himself to stay in the chair. But then, in a falsely level voice, he said,
"I was a blood slave. I was used by a female for blood."

The quiet after ~ J.R. Ward

In Chloe, a great city, the people who move through the streets are all strangers. At each encounter, they imagine a thousand things about one another; meetings which could take place between them, conversations, surprises, caresses, bites. But no one greets anyone; eyes lock for a second, then dart away, seeking other eyes, never stopping.

A girl comes along, twirling a parasol on her shoulder, and twirling slightly also her rounded hips. A woman in black comes along, showing her full age, her eyes restless beneath her veil, her lips trembling. At tattooed giant comes along; a young man with white hair; a female dwarf; two girls, twins, dressed in coral. Something runs among them, an exchange of glances link lines that connect one figure with another and draws arrows, stars, triangles, until all combinations are used up in a moment, and other characters come on to the scene: a blind man with a cheetah on a leash, a courtesan with an ostrich-plume fan, an ephebe, a Fat Woman. And thus, when some people happen to find themselves together, taking shelter from the rain under an arcade, or crowding beneath an awning of the bazaar, or stopping to listen to the band in the square, meetings, seductions, copulations, orgies are consummated among them without a word exchanged, without a finger touching anything, almost without an eye raised.

A voluptuous vibration constantly stirs Chloe, the most chaste of cities. If men and women began to live their ephemeral d ~ Italo Calvino

This book will prove the following ten facts:
1. A Goon is a being who melts into the foreground and sticks there.
2. Pigs have wings, making them hard to catch.
3. All power corrupts, but we need electricity.
4. When an irresistible force meets an immovable object, the result is a family fight.
5. Music does not always sooth the troubled beast.
6. An Englishman's home is his castle.
7. The female of the species is more deadly than the male.
8. One black eye deserves another.
9. Space is the final frontier, and so is the sewage farm.
10. It pays to increase your word power. ~ Diana Wynne Jones

It's just ... " She scrubbed a hand across her face. "I keep looking for someone to share life with, someone patient. Not afraid of a mop or use the stove. Even-tempered, understanding, not allergic to emotion." She closed her eyes momentarily. "Someone sweet."
Hunter stifled a grimace. She was describing a female with a penis. ~ Shayla Black

The mere thought of the Chosen female made him close his eyes and falter his feet on the stairs.
But then he threw off the sting. 'Cuz it was either that or go into a black-hole tailspin. The good news? He'd spent a lot of time over the last nine months trying to pull his mind, his emotions, his soul off the topic of Selena.
So he was used to this kind of power lifting.
Unfortunately, she remained a constant preoccupation, as if he had a low-level fever that dogged him no matter how much he slept and attempted to eat right.
And on some nights, it was a lot more than preoccupation - which was why he'd had to leave the Brotherhood mansion at times and crash back at his condo at the Commodore.
After all, bonded males could be dangerous, and the fact that he wasn't with her - and shouldn't be - meant absolutely nothing to that side of him. Especially when she was feeding fighters who could not, for whatever reason, take their mates' veins.
It was straight-up crazy. ~ J.R. Ward

When I grow up, maybe I will be
the first one to circle the sea.
Or maybe I will just spend all my day
doing everything my way.
Maybe I will be in a world of my own
I just hope not alone.
I just know that whatever I do
I will never, ever forget about you. ~ Oliver Neubert

Science is nothing more than a method of inquiry. The method says an assertion is valid, and merits universal acceptance, only if it can be independently verified. The impersonal rigor of the method means it is utterly apolitical. A truth in science is verifiable whether you are black or white, male or female, old or young. It's verifiable whether you like the results of a study, or you don't. ~ Michael Crichton

Alyelu didn't want to injure him, but he wouldn't release him, either. That feeling was one he couldn't admit, but the truth sat there before him. Mocking him. ~ Aaron-Michael Hall

I see them standing at the formal gates of their colleges,
I see my father strolling out
under the ochre sandstone arch, the
red tiles glinting like bent
plates of blood behind his head, I
see my mother with a few light books at her hip
standing at the pillar made of tiny bricks with the
wrought-iron gate still open behind her, its
sword-tips black in the May air,
they are about to graduate, they are about to get married,
they are kids, they are dumb, all they know is they are
innocent, they would never hurt anybody.
I want to go up to them and say Stop,
don't do it--she's the wrong woman,
he's the wrong man, you are going to do things
you cannot imagine you would ever do,
you are going to do bad things to children,
you are going to suffer in ways you never heard of,
you are going to want to die. I want to go
up to them there in the late May sunlight and say it,
her hungry pretty blank face turning to me,
her pitiful beautiful untouched body,
his arrogant handsome blind face turning to me,
his pitiful beautiful untouched body,
but I don't do it. I want to live. I
take them up like the male and female
paper dolls and bang them together
at the hips like chips of flint as if to
strike sparks from them, I say
Do what you are going to do, and I will tell about it ~ Sharon Olds

'This girl is fucking crazy. I like her,' Andre chuckles.
'I hate to break it to ya, dude, but I hear you're queer,' Max whispers with apparent regret. 'But I'd totally blow you in the bathroom if you're into it. Got a thing for black dudes. Huge penises.'
'Max!' Brayden gasps, then starts laughing his ass off. 'Holy shit!'
Andre laughs with him and Jenner smiles. Wrapping an arm around Max companionably, Andre draws her to his side.
'See?' Max says to them. 'Works every time. Honesty. God bless it.' ~ Lynn Kelling

I reviewed in thought the modern era of raps and apparitions, beginning with the knockings of 1848, at the hamlet of Hydesville, N.Y., and ending with grotesque phenomena at Cambridge, Mass.; I evoked the anklebones and other anatomical castanets of the Fox sisters (as described by the sages of the University of Buffalo ); the mysteriously uniform type of delicate adolescent in bleak Epworth or Tedworth, radiating the same disturbances as in old Peru; solemn Victorian orgies with roses falling and accordions floating to the strains of sacred music; professional imposters regurgitating moist cheesecloth; Mr. Duncan, a lady medium's dignified husband, who, when asked if he would submit to a search, excused himself on the ground of soiled underwear; old Alfred Russel Wallace, the naive naturalist, refusing to believe that the white form with bare feet and unperforated earlobes before him, at a private pandemonium in Boston, could be prim Miss Cook whom he had just seen asleep, in her curtained corner, all dressed in black, wearing laced-up boots and earrings; two other investigators, small, puny, but reasonably intelligent and active men, closely clinging with arms and legs about Eusapia, a large, plump elderly female reeking of garlic, who still managed to fool them; and the skeptical and embarrassed magician, instructed by charming young Margery's "control" not to get lost in the bathrobe's lining but to follow up the left stocking until he reached the bare thigh - upon the wa ~ Vladimir Nabokov

The rig began shaking like caffeine withdrawal." --Opening sentence of THE FURY.

"The duct-taped Buick swam north on Rush Street, hunting whores like a lesser white shark." --First sentence of Chapter One, THE FURY ~ Shane Gericke

It's not my business to remedy deaths! It's my business to tell stories. Lyra and the other heroines didn't come with placards saying, "Make this a feminist story!" I'm glad people enjoy seeing a female protagonist in a big adventure story, but I didn't do it for political reasons. ~ Philip Pullman

I came to the realization that a strong female is frightening to everybody, because all societies are male-dominated - black societies, poor people, rich people, any racial group, they're all dominated by men. A strong female is going to threaten everybody across the board. ~ Madonna Ciccone

Deprived of human intercourse, I inevitably overvalue the imagination and expect it to make the mundane glow with an aura of self-transcendence. ~ J.M. Coetzee

As bell hooks wrote in a 1998 essay, "Naked Without Shame," about black women's bodies and politics, "Marked by shame, projected as inherent and therefore precluding any possibility of innocence, the black female body was beyond redemption." She points out that since the time of U.S. slavery, men have benefited from positioning black women as naturally promiscuous because it absolves them of guilt when they sexually assault and rape women of color. "[I]t was impossible to ruin that which was received as inherently unworthy, tainted, and soiled," hooks wrote.
Women of color, low-income women, immigrant women- these are the women who are not seen as worthy of being placed on a pedestal. It's only our perfect virgins who are valuable, worthy of discourse and worship. ~ Jessica Valenti

Offence is so easily given. And where the 'minority' issue is involved, the rules seem to shift about: most of the time a person who is female/black/disabled/gay wants this not to be their defining characteristic; you are supposed to be blind to it. But then, on other occasions, you are supposed to observe special sensitivity, or show special respect. ~ Lynne Truss

You did not rescue me," Casiopea replied. "I opened that chest. Besides, I wasn't a princess in a tower. I knew I'd get away one way or another, and I was not waiting for a god to liberate me. ~ Silvia Moreno-Garcia