Woman Writer Quotes

As Frances Marion rose to accept the Academy Award for Screenwriting for her original story The Big House, she became the first woman writer to win an Oscar. Since 1917, she had been the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood - male or female - and was hailed as "the all-time best script and story writer the motion picture world has ever produced." Just forty and "as beautiful as the stars she wrote for," Frances was already credited with writing over one hundred produced films. ~ Cari Beauchamp

I'm a fiction writer, and I do write essays, but I am not a poet. And I absolutely reject the phrase 'woman writer' as anti-feminist. I wrote an essay about this as far back as 1977, at the height of the neo-feminist movement. ~ Cynthia Ozick

Now, I can tell you about some women writers who truly are fantastic. One is Anna Kavan. She writes stories like I approach "Land of a Thousand Dances": she's caught in a haze and then a light, a little teeny light, come through. It could be a leopard, that light, or it could be a spot of blood. It could be anything. But she hooks onto that and spirals out. And she does it within the accessible rhythms of plot, and that's really exciting. She's not hung up with being a woman, she just keeps extending herself, keeps telescoping language and plot.

Another great woman writer is Iris Sarazan, who wrote The Runaway. She considered herself a mare, a wild runaway. She was a really intelligent girl stuck in all these convents with a hungry mind. I identify with her 'cause of her hunger to go beyond herself. She wound up in prison, but she escaped and wrote some great books before kicking off. Her books aren't page after page of her beating her breast about how shitty she's been treated, they're books about her exciting telescoping plans of escape. Rhythm, great wild rhythm....

The French poet, Rimbaud, predicted that the next great crop of writers would be women. He was the first guy who ever made a big women's liberation statement, saying that when women release themselves from the long servitude of men they're really gonna gush. New rhythms, new poetries, new horrors, new beauties. And I believe in that completely. (1976 Penthouse interview) ~ Patti Smith

A woman writer, except in rare instances, has no protection such as enjoyed by men who use their wives and mistresses as a marline to save themselves from the wear and tear of interruption. ~ Miles Franklin

Was it an insult to be called a "woman writer"? Didn't it have a taint of, say, the "woman driver"? ~ Mary Norris

A woman writer, quitting love before literature when love lets her down, will put literature before love. ~ Doris Lessing

No black woman writer in this culture can write "too much". Indeed, no woman writer can write "too much" ... No woman has ever written enough. ~ Bell Hooks

Women have the right to be whatever kind of woman they want to be. Whatever kind of feminist they want to be, or not. I'm a woman writer. Some of my fiction is soft and poetic. Some of my fiction is horrifying and aggressive. My being a woman has no bearing on how I write. Or what I choose to write about. My being a woman is just my gender. It has very little to do with who I am as a person. So don't box me in or tell me how to be GIRL. It's the only thing I've figured out how to do, and I do it my way. ~ Cheryl Anne Gardner

Bess Meredyth, Anita Loos and I were asked our advice on virtually every script MGM produced in the thirties," Frances said with some resentment because she not only felt that their efforts were unappreciated, they were forced to conceal their influence and power. They were careful to always carry the scripts in "unmarked plain covers" because they were painfully aware of the whispers about "the tyranny of the woman writer." Along with women like Kate Corbaley and Ida Koverman, Frances had "fed the machine" that the studio had become. They brought in talent before others discovered it and found stories in places others didn't look. Adding to her frustration was her calculation that while only half of the stories she had worked on appeared on screen with her name on them, most men would demand screen credit "no matter how small their contribution to the final script. ~ Cari Beauchamp

Everyone thinks I have a coffee plantation in Sierra Leone, but I have a cashew crop project. I wrote about a woman who owns a coffee plantation! When you are talking about a woman writer coming from a hot country, there's a complete assumption that she is writing about her own life. ~ Aminatta Forna

Killing the Angel in the House was part of the occupation of a woman writer. ~ Virginia Woolf

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"? When ~ May Sarton

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

These forms of criticism that make black women the privileged readers of a black woman writer go against Hurston's own grain. She saw things otherwise: "When I set my hat at a certain angle and saunter down Seventh Avenue. . . . the cosmic Zora emerges. . . . How can anybody deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me!" This is exactly right. No one should deny themselves the pleasure of Zora - of whatever color or background or gender. ~ Zadie Smith

I will be­lieve that the bat­tle of fem­i­nism is over, and that the fe­male has reached a po­si­tion of equal­ity with the male, when I hear that a coun­try has al­lowed it­self to be turned up­side-down and led to the brink of war by its pas­sion for a to­tally bald woman writer. ~ Rebecca West

Sometimes I think every man wants to be a writer. They want to invent a world with the perfect imaginary woman, someone they can boss around and undress at will. They can work out their own aggressions with a few fictional rape scenes. Then they can send their fictional surrogate in to save her, a white knight – or a fireman! Someone with all the power and all the agency. Real women, on the other hand, have all these tiresome interests of their own, and won't follow an outline. ~ Joe Hill

You were right the first time, Cathy. It was a stupid, silly story.
Ridiculous! Only insane people would die for the sake of love. I'll
bet you a hundred to one a woman wrote that junky romantic trash!"
Just a minute ago I'd despised that author for bringing about such a
miserable ending, then there I went, rushing to the defense. "T. M.
Ellis could very well have been a man! Though I doubt any woman writer
in the nineteenth century had much chance of being published, unless
she used her initials, or a man's name. And why is it all men think
everything a woman writes is trivial or trashy-or just plain silly
drivel? Don't men have romantic notions? Don't men dream of finding
the perfect love? And it seems to me, that Raymond was far more
mushy-minded than Lily! ~ V.C. Andrews

I would be ecstatic if the very first writer to step foot in a Storyknife cabin was an Alaska Native woman writer. ~ Dana Stabenow

Of course, if I write a first-person novel about a woman writer, I am inviting every book reviewer to apply the autobiographical label
to conclude that I am writing about myself. But one must never not write a certain kind of novel out of fear of what the reaction to it will be. ~ John Irving

It does seem, in other words, not only more difficult for a woman experimental writer to be accepted than for a woman writer (which corresponds to the male situation of experimental writer vs. writer), but also peculiarly more difficult for a woman experimental writer to be accepted than for a male experimental writer. She may, if young, get caught up in a "movement," like Djuna Barnes, like H.D., like Laura Riding, as someone's mistress, and then be forgotten, or if old, she maybe "admitted" into a group, under a label, but never quite as seriously considered as the men in that group. ~ Christine Brooke-Rose

It's very hard to be an experimental woman writer. If I had been writing under a pseudonym, just initials, I might have a different reputation - but, then I couldn't be myself either. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

All a writer has to do to get a woman is to say he's a writer. It's an aphrodisiac. ~ Saul Bellow

Among all the 'awards' that I have hitherto collected, I consider the title of 'patita' or 'fallen woman' to be the highest. This is an achievement of my long-struggling life as a writer and as a woman. ~ Taslima Nasrin

Be wary of feeling as through there is not enough room at the table. Oftentimes a female Chinese-American might feel as through she is in competition with another Chinese-American woman writer of the same generation. A writer friend of mine calls it the "There Can Only Be One ... " syndrome. This isn't "Survivor." The more good writers, of all walks of life and all ethnicities and persuasions, the better. ~ ZZ Packer

I don't categorize myself as an 85-year-old woman who has written an erotic novel. I categorize myself as a writer who's written an erotic novel. ~ Gloria Vanderbilt

People often ask how I can reject the phrase 'woman writer' and not reject the phrase 'Jewish writer' - a preposterous question. 'Jewish' is a category of civilization, culture, and intellect, and 'woman' is a category of anatomy and physiology. ~ Cynthia Ozick

Henry Miller, Genet, Sade, Bataille are really important writers for me and I love them, but I feel often they don't love me, you know? I feel I always have to wrap my head around the way the girl is treated in the works, and the way the woman writer has been treated within their philosophies. I think of Kathy Acker's Blood and Guts in High School, where Janey Smith is in an S&M relationship with Jean Genet, who she follows around the deserts of Algeria, and he's horrible to her, and that's what I think of when I think of my relationship to those writers. I think you have to read the text, obviously, despite that.

You seem to be subverting Sade and Bataille's ideas of the whore, and Henry Miller – all of his cunt portraits, all of his horrors that he writes about – you're writing about it from an interiority and a subjectivity that we don't typically get with the 'whore' or the 'slut' or the sexual girl. ~ Kate Zambreno

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book?
It took me years to write, will you take a look? ~ Nancy Lynn Jarvis

Being a writer brings out a sassy woman inside me, and I love her so. ~ Anna Bayes

Because books saved my life, literally, I've become close to them ~ Malebo Sephodi

I say "on principle" [regarding 'lesbian writer'] because whenever you get one of your minority labels applied, like "Irish Writer," "Canadian Writer," "Woman Writer," "Lesbian Writer" - any of those categories - you always slightly wince because you're afraid that people will think that means you're only going to write about Canada or Ireland, you know. ~ Emma Donoghue

... the role of the disappointed lover of a maiden or of any single woman might be ridiculous; but the role of a man who was pursuing a married woman, and who made it the purpose of his life at all cost to draw her into adultery, was one which had in it something beautiful and dignified and could never be ridiculous ... . ~ Leo Tolstoy

My father was the editor of an agricultural magazine called 'The Southern Planter.' He didn't think of himself as a writer. He was a scientist, an agronomist, but I thought of him as a writer because I'd seen him working at his desk. I just assumed that I was going to do that, that I was going to be a writer. ~ Tom Wolfe

His wife was a little sharp-faced woman who bullied her husband when he was sober and was bullied by him when he was drunk. ~ James Joyce

He would've sworn the woman was a reincarnation of Holly Golightly, but this wasn't a Capote novel, no matter her resemblance to Hepburn. ~ Kelly Moran

Directing was easy for me because I was a writer director and did all my directing when I wrote the screenplay. ~ Preston Sturges

Are you all right?" he asked Olivia. His heart was still racing with terror that she'd been hurt. "I heard a woman scream."
"Ah, that would have been me," Sebastian said.
Harry looked down on his cousin, face frozen in disbelief. "You made that noise?"
"It hurt," Sebastian bit off.
Harry fought not to laugh. "You scream like a leettle girl. ~ Julia Quinn

You have cast out the wonder of creation - man and woman - and you have put money in its place. This is a basic terrorism against all of humanity! Think about it! ~ Pope Francis

It's impossible to know which parts of the woman, if any, were real. ~ Chris Pavone

You could say that I am the Estee Lauder woman. I'm a working mother; time is valuable to me. I want a good product; I want quality. ~ Aerin Lauder

I feel like a 16-year-old trapped inside a dead woman's body. ~ Tamsin Greig

What's the point in being an unpopular writer? It just doesn't make a lot of sense. For me it doesn't, anyway. ~ Bryce Courtenay

If you were a single mom, there's no way to support yourself and your kids by working in a hair salon. It's about a woman who decides to go and do what was considered a man's job, but was treated quite horribly for it and decides she has to fight for her rights when everyone thinks she should just shut up and take it. ~ Charlize Theron

Remember, my dear Evelina, nothing is so delicate as the reputation of a woman: it is, at once, the most beautiful and most brittle of all human things. ~ Fanny Burney

My love for these books, at its purest, is not really about Peeta or anything silly and girly. I love that a young woman character is fierce and strong but hum in ways I find believable, relatable. Katniss is clearly a heroine, but a heroine with issues. She intrigues me because she never seems to know her own strength. She isn't blandly insecure the way girls are often forced to be in fiction. She is brave but flawed. She is a heroine, but she is also a girl who loves two boys and can't choose which boy she loves more. She is not sure she is up to the task of leading a revolution, but she does her best, even as she doubts herself.

Katniss endures the unendurable. She is damaged and it shows. At times, it might seem like her suffering is gratuitous, but life often presents unendurable circumstances people manage to survive. Only the details differ. The Hunger Games trilogy is dark and brutal, but in the end, the books also offer hope - for a better world and a better people and, for one woman, a better life, a life she can share with a man who understands her strength and doesn't expect her to compromise that strength, a man who can hold her weak places and love her through the darkest of her memories, the worst of her damage. Of course I love the Hunger Games. The trilogy offers the tempered hope that everyone who survives something unendurable hungers for. ~ Roxane Gay

If you truly are going to be a writer, there must be somewhere within you the drive, the desire, to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, and actually write. ~ Kaye Dacus

In my experience, there is a very good reason why a good-looking young woman of around 20 is willing to go out with a man over 15 years her senior - she's nuts. ~ Mark Barrowcliffe

What people always demand of a popular novelist is that he shall write the same book over and over again, forgetting that a man who would write the same book twice could not even write it once. Any writer who is not utterly lifeless moves upon a kind of parabola, and the downward curve is implied in the upward one. ~ George Orwell

There is only one place to write and that is alone at a typewriter. The writer who has to go into the streets is a writer who does not know the streets ... when you leave your typewriter you leave your machine gun and the rats come pouring through. ~ Charles Bukowski

Moral responsibility is what is lacking in a man when he demands it of a woman. ~ Karl Kraus

It's about time a 55-year-old British woman is the heroine of an action movie. I may have to write it. ~ Emma Thompson

My sister Brenda said I was more interested in the idea of writing a book than actually writing it, because if I really wanted to write, I just would, every day, by myself, for myself, whether it was a book or not. She said a writer felt compelled to write whether they had an idea or not, whether they had a computer or not, whether they had a pen and paper or not. [ ... ] I wanted to write, I just didn't know if I could, and if I ever made a start I was afraid I'd discover that I couldn't. (from How to Fall in Love) ~ Cecelia Ahern

When we did Dynasty, it was the clothes. I think the clothes affected every woman around the world. I got so many letters, I think we made the designer a millionaire! ~ Aaron Spelling

Miracle woman ... Your mouth is wine, and all your tender flesh An easeful meadow for my weariness. ~ Donald Evans

34 C, baby," he said loudly. I felt my face turn a shade of red as a woman walked by us. She shot me an amused look. ~ Claire Contreras

I was proud to be in America, not just because here I found my voice but because the country made me the woman I am today, a woman with a fierce voice, a woman without shame. I grew up hearing that I was stubborn, a troublemaker, hard headed, and not good enough. But I had been wise enough to look in the mirror. I liked what I was, and I said to myself, I am worthy, lovable, and good enough. ~ Soraya Mire

Comparing man and woman on the whole, one may say: woman would not possess a genius for ornamentation if she did not also possessan instinct for the secondary role. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

At the beginning of the human race the woman was made of a rib taken from the side of the man while he slept; for it seemed fit that even then Christ and His Church should be foreshadowed in this event. For that sleep of the man was the death of Christ, whose side, as He hung lifeless upon the Cross, was pierced with a spear, and there flowed from it blood and water, and these we know to be the sacraments by which the Church is built up. ~ Saint Augustine

The dreams fresh on her mind, she wrote about the Ada she remembered. The obituary wasn't the sad, plodding list of mother and father, dead children, and surviving family. It honored a strong, funny woman. She proofed it a second time with a smile on her face. Ada would have slapped her knee and crowed along with her. ~ Laura Trentham

There are just so many options that people have. But as a writer, you'll drive yourself crazy, if you worry about that too much. People watch a lot of TV, so they think certain things are going to happen, and you're always trying to subvert expectations. ~ Carlton Cuse

Traditional autobiography has generally had a poor press. The novelist Daphne du Maurier condemned all examples of this literary form as self-indulgent. Others have quipped that autobiography reveals nothing bad about its writer except his memory. ~ Craig Venter

Sleep, honey. We can play later." And if she hadn't seen it with her own tired eyes, she never would've believed it. Like the snuffing of a candle, he was asleep in seconds. Burning red hot one moment, a ghost of dissipating smoke the next.

Hope inventoried his unguarded face, softer and so much younger in sleep, his enviably long lashes hiding the ever present jadedness. Fatigue pulled at her and she fought it, forcing her eyes open when they drifted shut.

"I'm not gonna fall in love with you, Beck. I'm gonna leave you in August."

She whispered the vow to a man in deep sleep. To a room cast in shadow. To a house steeped in tradition. To a woman mired in denial.

Sleep took her quickly, quicker than she wanted, and with it came the mocking sound of her surely spoken promise, echoing in her dreams like a school yard taunt. ~ Jodi Watters

One thing I had figured out by then was that talent, like everything else, was just a starting point. What counted was what you did with it. I knew I wasn't the most talented guitar player or the best singer or the best writer, but I could do all of those things, and I had a complete vision of what it was going to take to succeed---a vision that included working, working, working. ~ Paul Stanley

When a person sets out to learn from others and not to teach others he becomes a true writer. ~ Carla H. Krueger

Not everything in life has to be about finding "The One." Sometimes a girl just wants to have fun. ~ Mandy Hale

I'm a teacher and a writer; my life is words. When I see the denigration of language, it hurts me, and it's easy to denigrate a word by trivializing it. ~ Elie Wiesel

No flicker of amusement, no hint of fear. The woman could give Rowan a run for his money for sheer iciness. ~ Sarah J. Maas

My husband's personality was filled with serenity and sunlight. Not even the incurable illness which fell upon him soon after our marriage could long cloud his brow. On the very night of his death he took me in his arms, and during the many months when he lay dying in his wheel chair, he often said jokingly to me: 'Well, have you already picked out a lover?' I blushed with shame. 'Don't deceive me,' he added on one occasion, 'that would seem ugly to me, but pick out an attractive lover, or preferably several. You are a splendid woman, but still half a child, and you need toys. ~ Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch

In live-action, writing, production, and editing happen in discrete stages. In animation, they overlap - happening simultaneously. This allows a real dialogue to occur between the writer, the director, the actors, and the editor, and it makes the writing process a lot more collaborative and a lot less lonely. ~ Michael Arndt

Home, home - a few small rooms, stiflingly over-inhabited by a man, by a periodically teeming woman, by rabble of boys and girls of all ages. No air, no space; an understerilized prison; darkness, disease and smells. ~ Aldous Huxley

A woman should never have a need to fear the man who holds her in his arms; neither his hands that touches her. ~ Ellen J. Barrier

Of course, there is some truth in advertising. There's yeast in bread, but you can't make bread with yeast alone. Truth in advertising," announced Lord Peter sententiously, "is like leaven, which a woman hid in three measures of meal. It provides a suitable quantity of gas, with which to blow out a mass of crude misrepresentation into a form that the public can swallow. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

There is no hope even that woman, with her right to vote, will ever purify politics. ~ Emma Goldman