Forgotten Women Writers Quotes

The tragedy in the lives of the people is in what does not happen, rather than in what does happen -in all they do not realise.

Ethel Carnie -Miss Nobody ~ Ethel Carnie Holdsworth

Like other women writers of my class, I am expected to tame my talent to suit the comfort of my family. ~ Kamala Suraiyya Das

And I *know* I wrote in the above that I hate biographies and reviews that focus on the psychological, surface detail, especially when they pertain to women writers, because I think it's really about the cult of the personality, which is essentially problematic, and I think simplistically psychologizing which biographies are so wont to do is really problematic, and dangerous, especially when dealing with complicated women who just by being writers at a certain time and age were labelled as nonconformist, or worse, hysterical or ill or crazy, and I think branding these women as femme fatales is all so often done. And I know in a way I'm contributing to this by posting their bad-ass photos, except hopefully I am humanizing them and thinking of them as complicated selves and intellects AND CELEBRATING THEM AS WRITERS as opposed to straight-up objectifying. One particular review long ago in Poetry that really got my goat was when Brian Phillips used Gertrude Stein's line about Djuna Barnes having nice ankles as an opener in a review of her poetry, and to my mind it was meant to be entirely dismissive, as of course, Stein was being as well. Stein was many important revolutionary things to literature, but a champion of her fellow women writers she was not. They published my letter, but then let the guy write a reply and scurry to the library and actually read Nightwood, one of my all-time, all-times, and Francis Bacon's too, there's another anecdote. And it's burned in my brain his ~ Kate Zambreno

Peace is when we look upon the world together. ~ A.D. Posey

Leaning toward a certain party is one thing (Matthew did it, Simon did it, and Jesus allowed it), but it is important to see that a partisan spirit can actually run against the Spirit of God. If there ever was a partisan crowd in the Bible, it was the crowd that pressured Pilate to crucify Jesus instead of Barabbas. Barabbas, a true criminal, went free while Jesus, an innocent man, was executed after having his impeccable character assassinated. This is the essence of partisanship. Partisans inflate the best features of their party while inflating the worst features, real or contrived, of the other party. They ignore the weaknesses of their own party while dismissing the other party's strengths. I have good friends on both sides of the political aisle. I trust them. Many of them - on both sides - have a strong commitment to their faith. Because of this I grow perplexed when Christian men and women willingly participate in spin - ready, willing, and armed to follow the world in telling half-truths to promote their candidates, while telling more half-truths to demonize their opponents. Have we forgotten that a half-truth is the equivalent of a full lie? What's more, political spin is polarizing even within the community of faith. ~ Scott Sauls

We cannot look at history and expect our contemporary perceptions to apply. His-story is a male sport, the story of men, as told by men through the ages. Women figure in it simply to patch the silent phrases. But there is an uncanny resemblance between rituals of forgotten history and the reign of the feminine unconscious. Harem cannot be explained simply through the mirror of history. Harem is a unique archetype of the collective unconscious - matriarchy incubating in the cradle of patriarchy. It is an unsolved enigma, a haunting mystery, and undeniably a source of intuitive intelligence. ~ Alev Lytle Croutier

If art is not to be life-enhancing, what is it to be? Half the world is feminine
why is there resentment at a female-oriented art? Nobody asks The Tale of Genji to be masculine! Women certainly learn a lot from books oriented toward a masculine world. Why is not the reverse also true? Or are men really so afraid of women's creativity (because they are not themselves at the center of creation, cannot bear children) that a woman writer of genius evokes murderous rage, must be brushed aside with a sneer as 'irrelevant'? ~ May Sarton

Women still remember the first kiss after men have forgotten the last. ~ Remy De Gourmont

The French fairy tale writers were so popular and prolific that when their stories were eventually collected in the 18th century, they filled forty–one volumes of a massive publication called the Cabinet des Fées. Charles Perrault is the French fairy tale writer whom history has singled out for attention, but the majority of tales in the Cabinet des Fées were penned by women writers who ran and attended the leading salons: Marie–Catherine d'Aulnoy, Henriette Julie de Murat, Marie–Jeanne L'Héritier, and numerous others. These were educated women with an unusual degree of social and artistic independence, and within their use of the fairy tale form one can find distinctly subversive, even feminist subtext. ~ Terri Windling

The more women writers I read, from Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler to Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Toni Morrison, the less alone I felt, and the more I began to see myself as part of something more. It wasn't about one woman toiling against the universe. It was about all of us moving together, crying out into some black, inhospitable place that we would not be quiet, we would not go silently, we would not stop speaking, we would not give in. * ~ Kameron Hurley

What else do we have to expose and investigate corruption and maintain informed citizenry? When all levels of government and justice system are abusing power, where can people go with claims of that abuse? Only the press. ~ JoeAnn Hart

When the truth emerges, it can't be ignored. Nor will it wait. ~ Barbara Delinsky

There are women who have forgotten that to be a woman doesn't simply mean humiliation, doesn't simply mean bitterness. I haven't forgotten it yet ... I'm not going to forget it. ~ James Baldwin

There were many deficits in our swamp education, but Grandpa Sawtooth, to his credit, taught us the names of whole townships that had been forgotten underwater. Black pioneers, Creek Indians, moonshiners, women, 'disappeared' boy soldiers who deserted their army camps. From Grandpa we learned how to peer beneath the sea-glare of the 'official, historical' Florida records we found in books. "Prejudice," as defined by Sawtooth Bigtree, was a kind of prehistoric arithmetic
a "damn, fool math"
in which some people counted and others did not. It meant white names on white headstones in the big cemetery in Cypress Point, and black and brown bodies buried in swamp water.
At ten, I couldn't articulate much but I got the message: to be a true historian, you had to mourn amply and well. ~ Karen Russell

Women have sat indoors all these millions of years, so that by this time the very walls are permeated by their creative force, which has, indeed, so overcharged the capacity of bricks and mortar that it must needs harness itself to pens and brushes and business and politics. ~ Virginia Woolf

If you are a woman and wish to become pre-eminent in a field, it's a good idea to (a) invent it and (b) locate it in an area either so badly paid or of such low status that men don't want it ~ Joanna Russ

Perspective and perseverance are carved by time and constructed by wisdom. ~ A.D. Sams

[Writing in the voice of female characters] is scary. You get more cautious as you get older. I probably wouldn't write as an American either. I'd find a reason to make them half British.
I'm aware that female writers have been writing brilliant female characters for hundreds of years. I could make a terrible fool of myself unless I work out what the traps are, find bad female characters by male writers, work out why they're bad and give my wife every single book to read. ~ David Mitchell

It's always about timing. If it's too soon, no one understands. If it's too late, everyone's forgotten. ~ Anna Wintour

So many times the debate of abortion turns to legality. The issue is not legality, the issue is morality. Have you not forgotten? It was legal for Adolf Hitler to place all of those men, women, and children in concentration camps and murder them. Abortion should never be an issue of legality, it is most definitely an issue of morality. ~ Derrick Sanderson

We have to hear the stories of women at all ages of their lives in order to really present a picture of what it felt like to be alive in our time. That's what our job is as writers is to present that and create it. Our job as writers isn't to make as much money as we can. Our job is to create a record of this time. That's why if you leave out women and the stories of women, we failed at our mission. All of us. Men and women. ~ Marsha Norman

That's what a poem is. Words which have a hidden meaning. A poem is like a secret. ~ Monique Roffey

Why would we dare call someone a Literary Witch? Because all artists are magicians, and Witches wield a special magic. Witches and women writers alike dwell in creativity, mystery and other worlds. They aren't afraid to be alone in the woods of their imaginations or to live in huts of their own making. They're not afraid of the dark.' * ~ Taisia Kitaiskaia

Being a woman is inherently uncanny. Your humanity is liminal; your body is forfeit; your mind is doubted as a matter of course. You exist in the periphery, and I think many women writers can't help but respond to that state. ~ Carmen Maria Machado

Get more women producers, writers, directors. Why should we expect men to do it for us? They can't. ~ Kathleen Turner

It's also interesting to notice that most of the best Finnish speculative writers are women. ~ Toni Jerrman

In many ways, this book is not about the politicians who are turning the ANC and Nelson Mandela's legacy into a nightmare. It is about all of us, South Africans, who keep quiet when our voices are needed. It is about those of us who keep quiet when journalists like Mzilikazi wa Afrika are arrested on trumped-up charges.11 It is about those of us who have forgotten that freedom is never fully achieved, but is defended and renewed every single day, in every square inch of space we occupy in the world. If the South Africa of our dreams withers and dies, it will be because we have stepped away from the public square. Where is the real ANC? Crucially, where are the men and women who fought so valiantly for this new South Africa? ~ Justice Malala

Reviewing books is all about coziness. It is all of it a kind of caucus race. Women review women, Jewish writers review and praise Jewish writers, blacks review blacks, etc. ~ Alexander Theroux

Justice Denied
Thousands of women, probably more
I cannot reach them behind justice doors
Many stay silent, barred just like me.
Haunted by demons, faces unseen.
Still by the hundreds, they continue to serve
Duty and country, active and reserve.
Thankless, forgotten through America's wars
Scarred like their brethren, treated as foes.
Volunteered to go to the shores.
Died like the others, shamed to the core.
Where is the dignity, long since denied?
Lost in the White House of Justice Denied
Women in service since beginning of time
Often they're treated like victims in crime.
Where is their voice, silence throughout the years?
It's dead in the Senate and House, with their tears! ~ Diane Chamberlain

Men have external genitalia, while women have internal genitalia. This simple difference makes a lot of difference in how they write about themselves - and how you might write about your characters. Male writers don't often address internal sensation in a character, because they don't experience it (and probably often don't realize consciously that it's there). This accounts for a lot of Really Terrible sex scenes written by men (if you look at the "Bad Sex-Scene Awards" in any given year, you'll see that the vast majority are done by male writers). ~ Diana Gabaldon

The Amazons is a stupendous achievement
a long-anticipated centerpiece in the great puzzle of humankind. The story of these forbidden women, silenced for so long by the rigidity of traditional scholarship, is as exciting and surprising as a bestselling murder mystery; I simply couldn't put it down. Through scholarly brilliance and passion, Adrienne Mayor has opened the door to a forgotten world of gender equality, and her book ought to be required reading in every college history course. ~ Anne Fortier

Love is alive when there's music in your heart. ~ A.D. Posey