Menopause Quotes

Why must the woman apologize for not having a baby just because she happened to get pregnant? It's as if we think motherhood is the default setting for a woman's life from first period to menopause, and she needs a note from God not to say yes to every zygote that knocks on her door. ~ Katha Pollitt

Right now I don't call it the menopause, I call it men-on-pause. ~ Marie Osmond

Long before there were effective treatments, physicians dispensed prognoses, hope, and, above all, meaning. When something terrible happens-and serious disease is always terrible-people want to know why. In a pantheistic world, the explanation was simple-one god had caused the problem, another could cure it. In the time since people have been trying to get along with only one God, explaining disease and evil has become more difficult. Generations of theologians have wrestled with the problem of theodicy-how can a good God allow such bad things to happen to good people?

Darwinian medicine can't offer a substitute for such explanations. It can't provide a universe in which events are part of a divine plan, much less one in which individual illness reflects individual sins. It can only show us why we are the way we are, why we are vulnerable to certain diseases. A Darwinian view of medicine simultaneously makes disease less and more meaningful. Diseases do not result from random or malevolent forces, they arise ultimately from past natural selection. Paradoxically, the same capacities that make us vulnerable to disease often confer benefits. The capacity for suffering is a useful defense. Autoimmune disease is a price of our remarkable ability to attack invaders. Cancer is the price of tissues that can repair themselves. Menopause may protect the interests of our genes in existing children. Even senescence and death are not random, but compromises struck by natural s ~ Randolph M. Nesse

Hurt of this magnitude is like menopause," Phyllis tells me. I've just wiped my nose with one of the hats. She takes it from me and hands me a tissue. "Comes in hot flashes. Just when you feel like you can't take it anymore, it passes for a bit. But it comes back, boy does it. ~ Tarryn Fisher

On a planet where for thousands of years, even today, a woman's worth has been judged exclusively by the productivity of her womb, what the hell is the point of a barren woman? ~ Elissa Stein And Susan Kim

Nona had been bonkers since I could remember. Dad said it was menopause, but I had looked that up once, and I highly doubted that was the case. ~ Holly Hood

I personally have a cunt. Sometimes it's 'flaps' or 'twat', but most of the time, it's my cunt. Cunt is a proper, old, historic, strong word. I like that my fire escape also doubles up as the most potent swearword in the English language. Yeah. That's how powerful it is, guys. If I tell you what I've got down there, old ladies and clerics might faint. I like how shocked people are when you say 'cunt'. It's like I have a nuclear bomb in my pants, or a tiger, or a gun.

Compared to this the most powerful swearword men have got out of their privates is 'dick', which is frankly vanilla, and I believe you're allowed to use on, like, Blue Peter if something goes wrong. In a culture where nearly everything female is still seen as squeam-inducing, and/or weak - menstruation, menopause, just the sheer simple act of calling someone 'a girl' - I love that 'cunt' stands, on its own, as the supreme unvanquishable word. It has almost mystic resonance. It is a cunt - we all know it's a cunt - but we can't call it a cunt. We can't say the actual word. It's too powerful. Like Jews can never utter the Tetragrammaton - an must make do with 'Jehovah', instead. ~ Caitlin Moran

Retirement is the menopause of an employee's mind and hands. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Menopause is your return to where you were before, when your hormone levels are the same as a pre-adolescent girl's. ~ Sandra Tsing Loh

Rock and menopause do not mix. ~ Stevie Nicks

If men went through menopause, we'd know everything about it, but we still don't even know if we should be taking hormones. ~ Joycelyn Elders

So the years passed and everyone grew old and Nell's husband died and Hilda grew to be a large, angry sort of woman very high up in local government. When Nell was eighty-four Hilda retired and they went to live at a sea-side place where Hilda had had meaningful holidays during the menopause with a woman called Audrey, now dead. ~ Jane Gardam

The women's health initiative standards for HRT is nothing but an embarrassment to all physicians, and I'm not sure why they have not retracted all the statements that came out of that joke of a study. ~ Marie Hoag MBA

What has gotten into you lately? Save a little craziness for menopause! ~ Woody Allen

A woman must wait for her ovaries to die before she can get her rightful personality back. Post-menstrual is the same as pre-menstrual; I am once again what I was before the age of twelve: a female human being who knows that a month has thirty day, not twenty-five, and who can spend every one of them free of the shackles of that defect of body and mind known as femininity. ~ Florence King

I'm not sure anyone goes through a cancer scare unchanged. I know it changed me in so many ways. But I was fortunate to have had a rare cancer that's slow-growing and one that allowed me to skip the chemical cocktails that would have put me into early menopause. ~ Susan McBride

I call the Change of Life "Orchids" because menopause is such an ugly word. It's got men in it for goddsakes. ~ Lisa Jey Davis

Male menopause is a lot more fun than female menopause. With female menopause you gain weight and get hot flashes. Male menopause ? you get to date young girls and drive motorcycles. ~ John Wayne

Acting feels different. I'm not sure exactly what that is, but it used to mean a lot more. Maybe that sounds like I'm throwing it away and I'm not, I'll still do the best damn job I can, but it doesn't mean the same thing. I'm going to get the answer for myself one of these days. It's the male menopause, that's what it is. ~ Mel Gibson

I am not going to give you disclaimers about what you can expect to find in my story. I went through menopause recently and find I don't much care about anyone's sensibilities anymore. I am called BadSquirrel for a reason. Considering how incredibly rude and grouchy I have become, I expect all of you to be extremely grateful to the QMBG (Queen Mother Bitch Goddess for those of you who haven't kept up) for all of the good warm fuzzy bits of my story. If you like it, it's because she went through it and took out all the really disturbing parts and made me behave. ~ BadSquirrel

I had a bit of a male menopause. It started at the age of 18 and continued until I was 45. ~ Ian McShane

The object of facing up squarely to the fact of the climacteric is to acquire serenity and power. If women on the youthful side of the climacteric could glimpse what this state of peaceful potency might be, the difficulties of making the transition would be less. It is the nature of the case that life beyond the menopause is as invisible to the woman who has yet to struggle through the change as to the top of any mountain is invisible from the valley below. Calm and poise do not simply happen to the post menopausal woman, she has to fight for them. ~ Germain Greer

Oh no, honey. Lots of women go through it early. Why, there was this woman over in Georgia who was only thirty-six-years-old and one day she got in her car and drove right up the stairs to the county courthouse, rolled down her window, and tossed her mother's head that she had just chopped off in her kitchen at a State policeman and hollered, "Here! This is what you wanted," and drove right back down the courthouse stairs. Now that's what an early menopause will do for you if you're not careful. ~ Fannie Flagg

In the end, the real wisdom of menopause may be in questioning how fun or even sane this chore wheel called modern life actually is. ~ Sandra Tsing Loh

With so many forty- and fifty something mums and dads in Converse stalking the streets, I can see why there's a slew of books about the menopause and middle age, the most recent addition being David Bainbridge's plucky, glass-half-full meditation or, as he calls it, 'natural history.' ~ Rachel Johnson

Age shame is also a problem primarily for women. As women approach and go through menopause, naturally gaining weight as fat-to-muscle ratios shift, they exhibit many of the same anxieties and symptoms that teenage girls do. The process of growing older makes women's 'flaws' more visible and acute, thus, aging, a natural process, becomes frightening, disorienting, and difficult for many women. ~ Soraya Chemaly

I caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror as we glided p. I looked as eroded as the groaning lift. What had happened to the fresh-faced belle from Boston, Mass.? The woman who stared back at me was at the dreaded age between forty-five and fifty, that no-man's land of sag, oncoming wrinkle, and stealthy approach of menopause.
"I hate this elevator, too," I said grimly.
Zoe grinned and pinched my cheek.
"Mom, even Gwyneth Paltrow would look like hell in that mirror."
I had to smile. That was such a Zoe-like remark. ~ Tatiana De Rosnay

I'm enjoying my life, post-menopause, so much. It's just so great to grow into yourself, and not be bothered with all that tyranny of biology. ~ Roseanne Barr

Transsexualism is, basically, just another, more drastic twist on the male menopause ~ Julie Burchill

Together, the hypothalamus, pituitary, and ovary form a trio that plays a wonderful song of fertility from puberty to menopause. ~ Trisha Gura

What you believe can change your experience. ~ Staness Jonekos

It's okay to talk about birth, okay - then menstruation. I first started my advocacy for women's health in the field of reproductive freedom, and the next stage would be bringing menopause out of the closet. ~ Cybill Shepherd

Menopause. A pause while you reconsider men. ~ Margaret Atwood

I'm what is known as perimenopausal. "Peri", some of you may know, is a Latin prefix meaning 'SHUT YOUR FLIPPIN' PIE HOLE". ~ Celia Rivenbark

Menopause, perimenopause, childbirth and breast-feeding can all cause a woman's sex drive to shut down. ~ Drew Pinsky

You can do this (this thing, where your body will cease to produce hormones and your skin, hair, muscles and bones ... basically every part of you will notice, go into withdrawals, and stage a coup). Be prepared for this mentally, and you'll own this thing. ~ Lisa Jey Davis

A married guy is responsible for everything, no matter what. Women, thanks to their having been oppressed all these years, are blameless, free as birds, and all the dirt they do is the result of premenstrual syndrome or postmenstrual stress or menopause or emotional disempowerment by their fathers or low expectations by their teachers or latent unspoken sexual harassment in the workplace, or some other airy excuse. The guy alone is responsible for every day of marriage that is less than marvelous and meaningful. ~ Garrison Keillor

She'd always had a short fuse but lately she was positively electric and could burst into flame anywhere, anytime ... When she was out of the shower, dry and cool, she had one of those reprieves that came regularly - she felt perfectly normal, sane and in control. Then came the inevitable guilt ... ~ Robyn Carr

Other people get moody in their forties and fifties - men get the male menopause. I missed the whole thing. I was just really happy. ~ Rik Mayall

Hello, my sister, Libby, also your daughter, is snogging a potato in my bed. What are you going to do about it?' Dad started yelling uncontrollably. I wonder if he is having the male menopause? If he starts growing breasts, I will definitely be running away with the circus. ~ Louise Rennison

Estrogen deficient woman are nothing but the walking dead. ~ Marie Hoag MBA

I have a friend named Doris who argues, on good authority, that the single biggest cause of global warming is menopause. ~ Dave Barry

According to the Western model, pregnancy is a disease, menopause is a disease, and even getting pregnant is a disease. Dangerous drugs and devices are given to women, but not to men- just for birth control. I've reached the conclusion that to many doctors BEING A WOMAN IS A DISEASE ~ Barbara Seaman

Rites–of–passage stories…were cherished in pre–literate societies not only for their entertainment value, but also as mythic tools to prepare young men and women for life's ordeals. A wealth of such stories can be found marking each major transition in the human life cycle: puberty, marriage, childbirth, menopause, death. Other rites–of–passage, less predictable but equally transformative, include times of sudden change and calamity such as illness and injury, the loss of one's home, the death of a loved one, etc. These are the times when we wake, like Dante, to find ourselves in a deep, dark wood - an image that in Jungian psychology represents an inward journey. Rites–of–passage tales point to the hidden roads that lead out of the dark again - and remind us that at the end of the journey we're not the same person as when we started. Ascending from the Netherworld (that grey landscape of illness, grief, depression, or despair), we are 'twice–born' in our return to life, carrying seeds - new wisdom, ideas, creativity and fecundity of spirit. ~ Terri Windling

Two thousand and seven was the year we officially entered our late twenties - the starting line of the death march to menopause. ~ Helena Andrews

Women know when they've got the menopause but men don't quite know. They know it afterwards. ~ Omar Sharif

My mother, of course, had a different opinion.
'They're driving me crazy!' she said, swatting at them with her beige Coach handbag.
'How can you tell?' my dad asked. 'Between your menopause craziness and your turning fifty craziness and everything else?'
'Forty-eight!' my mom cried.
Dad groaned. 'Have you forgotten who you're lying to? ~ Megan McCafferty

The problem with the word "vagina" is that vaginas seem to be just straight-out bad luck. Only a masochist would want one, because only awful things happen to them. Vaginas get torn. Vaginas get "examined.".. No. Let's clear this up right now - I don't actually have a vagina. I never have. I, personally, have a cunt. Cunt is a proper, old, historic, strong word, and it doubles up as the most potent swear word in the English language. Yeah. That's how powerful it is, guys. If I tell you what I've got down there, old ladies and clerics might faint. I like how shocked people are when you say "cunt." Compared to this, the most powerful swear word men have got out of their privates is "dick," which is frankly vanilla. In a culture where nearly everything female is still seen as squeam-inducing and/or weak - menstruation, menopause, just the sheer, simple act of calling someone "a girl" - I love that "cunt" stands on its own, as the supreme, unvanquishable word. ~ Caitlin Moran

Dorothy is the only woman in history who has had her menopause in public and made it pay. ~ Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Sorrow is not itself evidence of maladjustment but of the adjustment process itself. ~ Germaine Greer

If you make some comment even obliquely alluding to menstruation or menopause and its effect on my judgment," Murphy interrupted, "I will break your arm in eleven places. ~ Jim Butcher

As women, most interactions from around age eight on teach us to keep things cool so no one is inspired to, God forbid, call us the U or F words: "ugly" or "fat." I'm not the first to point out how women are taught that our value comes from how we look, and that it takes a lifetime (or at least until menopause) for most women to undo this awful lie. As ~ Amy Schumer

It's one thing for a rape victim to speak up, or a woman with a wanted pregnancy that has turned into a medical catastrophe. But why can't a woman just say, This wasn't the right time for me? Or two children (or one, or none) are enough? Why must the woman apologize for not having a baby just because she happened to get pregnant? It's as if we think motherhood is the default setting for a woman's life from first period to menopause, ~ Katha Pollitt

Thirty-nine-year-old moderately successful Human Resources Director. Interests include regency romances, reality TV, and baking large novelty birthday cakes for other people's children. Hobbies include drinking Tia Maria and eating Turkish delight in the bath and dining out with her mum and dad. Wanted to be a ballerina but didn't end up with a ballerina body; however, has been told she is an impressive dirty dancer when drunk. Knows her wine, so please just hand the wine list over. Godmother to nine children, member of two book clubs, Social Club Manager for the Australian Payroll Officers' Association. Suffers from a severe blushing problem but is not shy and will probably end up better friends with your friends than you, which you'll find highly irritating after we break up. Has recently become so worried about meeting the love of her life and having children before she reaches menopause that she has cried piteously in the middle of the night. But otherwise is generally quite cheerful and has on at least three separate occasions that she knows of been described as 'Charming'. Yep, that about summed it up. What a catch. ~ Liane Moriarty

The literature of menopause is the saddest, the most awful, and the most medical of all genres. You're sleepless, you're anxious, you're fat, you're depressed - and the advice is always the same: take more walks, eat some kale, and drink lots of water. It didn't help. ~ Sandra Tsing Loh

Often, women's symptoms are brushed off as the result of depression, anxiety, or the all-purpose favorite: stress. Sometimes, they are attributed to women's normal physiological states and cycles: to menstrual cramps, menopause, or even being a new mom. Sometimes, other aspects of their identity seem to take center stage: fat women report that any ailment is blamed on their weight; trans women find that all their symptoms are attributed to hormone therapy; black women are stereotyped as addicts looking for prescription drugs, their reports of pain doubted entirely. Whatever the particular attribution, there is often the same current of distrust: the sense that women are not very accurate judges of when something is really, truly wrong in their bodies. ~ Maya Dusenbery

The only study that the federal government has engaged in with a vengeance is in trying to see if they can make women fertile after menopause. ~ Patricia Schroeder

Osteoporosis is a disease that attacks the bones in your body. It happens to really almost everyone when they get really old. But for women, after menopause, they can lose up to 30 percent of their bone mass. ~ Ann Richards

Without a shadow of a doubt, the first fiction ever recounted was fantasy. Guys sitting around the campfire telling each other stories about the gods who made lightning, and stuff like that. They did not tell one another literary stories. They did not complain about difficulties of male menopause while being a junior lecturer on some midwestern college campus. Fantasy is without a shadow of a doubt the ur-literature, the spring from which all other literature has flown. ~ Terry Pratchett

Women have always been seen as waiting: waited to be asked, waiting for our menses, in fear lest they do or do not come, waiting for men to come home from wars, or from work, waiting for children to grow up, or for the birth of a new child, or for menopause. ~ Adrienne Rich

Evelyn stared into the empty ice cream carton and wondered where the smiling girl in the school pictures had gone. ~ Fannie Flagg

Gen Xers are in 'the prime of their lives' at a particularly dangerous and divisive moment,' Boomer marketing expert Faith Popcorn told me. 'They have been hit hard financially and dismissed culturally. They have tons of debt. They're squeezed on both sides by children and aging parents. The grim state of adulthood is hitting them hard. If they're exhausted and bewildered, they have every reason to feel that way. ~ Ada Calhoun

Certainly the effort to remain unchanged, young, when the body gives so impressive a signal of change as the menopause, is gallant; but it is a stupid, self-sacrificial gallantry, better befitting a boy of twenty than a woman of forty-five or fifty. Let the athletes die young and laurel-crowned. Let the soldiers earn the Purple Hearts. Let women die old, white-crowned, with human hearts. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

So, more times than not, but not every time, it can be linked to a medical problem, such as menopause, cancer, chronic pain, it can be linked to anxiety and depression. Those are the more common causes. ~ Shelby Harris

The Rose has always been the premiere symbol of female sexuality. In primitive goddess cults, the five petals represented the five stations of female life - birth, menstruation, motherhood, menopause, and death. And in modern times, the flowering rose's ties to womanhood are considered more visual. ~ Dan Brown

But when mother died, Caroline was twelve, and in that queer time between childhood and nubile girlhood, when some girls seem to be wise without experience, and perhaps more clear-headed then they will be again until after their menopause. ~ Robertson Davies

with a woman's life expectancy at eighty-four years, it is reasonable to expect that she will not only live thirty to forty years beyond menopause, but be vibrant, sharp, and influential as well. The menopause you will experience is not your mother's (or grandmother's) menopause. ~ Christiane Northrup

At her first bleeding a woman meets her power.
During her bleeding years she practices it.
At menopause she becomes it.
Traditional Native American saying ~ Lucy H. Pearce