Women Who Run With Wolves Quotes

All creatures must learn that there exist predators. Without this knowing, a woman will be unable to negotiate safely within her own forest without being devoured. To understand the predator is to become a mature animal who is not vulnerable out of naivete, inexperience, or foolishness. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Like my kith and kin before me, I swagger-staggered in high heels, and I wore a dress and a hat to church. But my fabulous tail often fell below my hemline, and my ears twitched until my hat pitched, at the very least, down over both my eyes, and sometimes clear across the room. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Sometimes there are no words to help one's courage. Sometimes you just have to jump. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Even in the best of worlds the soul needs refurbishing from time to time. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The only trust required is to know that when there is one ending there will be another beginning. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

So, the word wild here is not used in its modern pejorative sense, meaning out of control, but in its original sense, which means to live a natural life, one in which the criatura, creature, has innate integrity and healthy boundaries. These words, wild and woman, cause women to remember who they are and what they are about. They create a metaphor to describe the force which funds all females. They personify a force that women cannot live without. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Many of us have lived desert lives: very small on the surface, and enormous under the ground. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Practice listening to your intuition, your inner voice; ask questions; be curious; see what you see; hear what you hear; and then act upon what you know to be true. These intuitive powers were given to your soul at birth. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

A woman must be able to stand in the face of power, because ultimately some part of that power will become hers. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

We dismantle the predator by countering its diatribes with our own nurturant truths. Predator: You never finish anything you start. Yourself: I finish many things. We dismantle the assaults of the natural predator by taking to heart and working with what is truthful in what the predator says and then discarding the rest. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Women's curiosity was given a negative connotation, whereas men were called investigative. Women were called nosy, whereas men were called inquiring. In reality, the trivialization of women's curiosity so that it seems like nothing more than irksome snooping denies women's insight, hunches, and intuitions. It denies all her senses. It attempts to attack her fundamental power. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

(Young girls) are taught to not see, and instead to "make pretty" all manner of grotesqueries whether they are lovely or not. This training is why the youngest sister can say, "Hmmm, his beard isn't really that blue." This early training to "be nice" causes women to override their intuitions. In that sense, they are actually purposefully taught to submit to the predator. Imagine a wolf mother teaching her young to "be nice" in the face of an angry ferret or a wily diamondback rattler. ~ Clarissa Pinkola Estes

To honor with hymns and panegyrics those who are still alive is not safe; a man should run his course and make a fair ending, and then we will praise him; and let praise be given equally to women as well as men who have been distinguished in virtue. ~ Plato

The way to fight a woman is with your hat. Grab it and run.
The guy who said that was a wise man. He knew what most men don't - Women are powerful creatures who should be handled with care, or they can become very, very dangerous. ~ Christina Dodd

Jon: Sometimes I dream about it. I'm walking down this long empty hall. My voice echoes all around, but no one answers, so I walk faster, opening door, shouting names. I don't even know who I'm looking for. Most nights it's my father, but sometimes it's Robb instead, or my little sister Arya, or my uncle.

Sam: Do you ever find anyone in your dream?

Jon: No one. The castle is always empty. Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones, That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It's black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream. That's when I always wake. ~ George R.R. Martin

I would respect feminist who said "Single moms, are you kidding me? Stop taking government benefits because, the government is the patriarchy. So, you are taking things from the patriarchy so you dont have to be responsible. Any woman who takes money from the government using cops who usually extract it from men by force is not a feminist. Is a exceedingly bad bride of the state." I would admire that but, of course feminism doesn't have anything to do with any of that stuff.

Look, it's fine. Have your fun. Make fun of men. Go for it. Yea, we're all idiots, we're all selfish, greedy bastards. Ok, it's fine because the government is going to run out of money soon and then all these woman are going to try to find some guy to latch onto when the benefits stop flowing and I mean, you saw this happening with the soviet union. "Now we need you! You guys are great! We missed you so much! Give me some money!"

It's just a bunch of noise from a bunch of people who are stealing from the productive. ~ Stefan Molyneux

To be a full-blooded hillbilly was to be a living koan. Half of you wanted to be dignified and half of you couldn't tolerate any restraint. You could see it in the regional art and hear it in the music. Wood carving with chainsaws. Cloggers who danced up a storm with the lower half of their bodies, but held the upper half perfectly still and stared off into the distance stone-faced. Or a group of bluegrass musicians who'd be playing the most raucous tunes imaginable, looking around at each other with bemused expressions that seemed to say where's all that racket comin from?
Phoebe believed that nearly all the adult males everywhere were pretty much the same way. Most of them could manage to keep the top half of themselves under a semblance of control, but the bottom half tended to run wild. As she continued to descend the trail she couldn't help but think that most men were mentally ill below the waist. ~ Carolyn Jourdan

Sometimes a woman would tell me that the feeling gets so strong she runs out of the house and walks through the streets. Or she stays inside her house and cries. Or her children tell her a joke, and she doesn't laugh because she doesn't hear it. I talked to women who had spent years on the analyst's couch, working out their "adjustment to the feminine role," their blocks to "fulfillment as a wife and mother." But the desperate tone in these women's voices, and the look in their eyes, was the same as the tone and the look of other women, who were sure they had no problem, even though they did have a strange feeling of desperation.
A mother of four who left college at nineteen to get married told me:

I've tried everything women are supposed to do - hobbies, gardening, pick-ling, canning, being very social with my neighbors, joining committees, run-ning PTA teas. I can do it all, and I like it, but it doesn't leave you anything to think about - any feeling of who you are. I never had any career ambitions. All I wanted was to get married and have four children. I love the kids and Bob and my home. There's no problem you can even put a name to. But I'm desperate. I begin to feel I have no personality. I'm a server of food and a putter-on of pants and a bedmaker, somebody who can be called on when you want something. But who am I?

A twenty-three-year-old mother in blue jeans said:

I ask myself why I'm so dissatisfied. I've got my health, fine c ~ Betty Friedan

I don't know why it is, but women who have anything to do with Opera, even if they're only studying for it, always appear to run to surplus poundage. ~ P.G. Wodehouse

Everyone thinks that it was the big strong caveman who got the girl, and for the most part, that may have been true, but physical strength doesn't explain how our species created civilization. I think there was always some scrawny dreamer sitting at the edge of the firelight, who had the ability to imagine dangers, to look into the future in his imagination and see possibilities, and therefore survived to pass his genes on to the next generation. When the big ape men ended up running off the cliff or getting killed while trying to beat a mastodon into submission with a stick, the dreamer was standing back thinking 'Hey, that might work, but you need to run the mastodon off the cliff.' And, then he'd mate with the women left over after the go-getters got killed. ~ Christopher Moore

At some point, sisters began to talk about how unseen they have felt. How the media has focused on men, but it has been them - the sisters - who were there. They were there, in overwhelming numbers, just as they were during the civil rights movement.

Women - all women, trans women - are roughly 80% of the people who were staring down the terror of Ferguson, saying "we are the caretakers of this community". Is it women who are out there, often with their children, calling for an end to police violence, saying "we have a right to raise our children without fear".

But it is not women's courage that is showcased in the media. One sister says "when the police move in we do not run, we stay. And for this, we deserve recognition". Their words will live with us, will live in us, as Ferguson begins to unfold and as the national attention begins to really focus on what Alicia, Opal and I have started.

The first time there's coverage of Black Lives Matter in a way that is positive is on the Melissa Harris-Perry show. She does not invite us - it isn't intentional, I'm certain of that. And about a year later she does, but in this early moment, and despite the overwhelming knowledge of the people on the ground who are talking about what Alicia, Opal and I have done, and despite of it being part of the historical record, that it is always women who do the work even as men get the praise. It takes a long time for us to occur to most reporters and the mains ~ Patrisse Khan-Cullors

A little white woman, . . . [a] tiny little white woman I could fit in my pocket.' . . . 'And I don't know why I'm surprised. You don't even notice it – you never notice. You think it's normal. Everywhere we go, I'm alone in this… this sea of white. I barely know any black folk any more, Howie. My whole life is white. I don't see any black folk unless they be cleaning under my feet in the fucking café in your fucking college. Or pushing a fucking hospital bed through a corridor . . . 'I gave up my life for you. I don't even know who I am any more.' . . . 'Could you have found anybody less like me if you'd scoured the earth? . . . My leg weighs more than that woman. What have you made me look like in front of everybody in this town? You married a big black bitch and you run off with a fucking leprechaun? ~ Zadie Smith

I am confident that someday in the future The Rock, who was once a professional wrestler, will run for president of the United States, and I think that he will win. I have seen with my own eyes the power of The Rock. The Rock is a uniter, not a divider. When the BOP showed Walking Tall, the turnout for every screening all weekend long was unprecedented. The Rock has an effect on women that transcends divisions of race, age, cultural background - even social class, the most impenetrable barrier in America. Black, white, Spanish, old, young, all women are hot for The Rock. Even the lesbians agreed that he was mighty easy on the eyes. ~ Piper Kerman

It's not easy to diagnose because depending where the endometrial deposits are, the symptoms can be quite different. It's an unrecognized problem among teenage girls, and it's something that every young woman who has painful menstruation should be aware of ... it's a condition that is curable if it's caught early. If not, if it's allowed to run on, it can cause infertility, and it can really mess up your life.
[Author Hilary Mantel on being asked about being a writer with endometriosis, Nov 2012 NPR interview] ~ Hilary Mantel

All the people within reach had suspended their business, or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The rough, irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one might have thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them, had dammed it into little pools; these were surrounded, each by its own jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled down, made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to help women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, before the wine had all run out between their fingers. Others, men and women, dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from women's heads, which were squeezed dry into infants' mouths; others made small mud-embankments, to stem the wine as it ran; others, directed by lookers-on up at high windows, darted here and there, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new directions; others devoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed pieces of the cask, licking, and even champing the moister wine-rotted fragments with eager relish. There was no drainage to carry off the wine, and not only did it all get taken up, but so much mud got taken up along with it, that there might have been a scavenger in the street, if anybody acquainted with it could have believed in such a miraculous presence. ~ Charles Dickens

I will howl with the wolves, soar above the eagles and roam wild with the Mustang. I will breathe life into the sunrise atop a mountain, bathe naked in the streams, dance in the sunset and love beneath the stars, travelling far and wide, seeking new experiences with those who dare to run with the wind, dare to touch the storm that is me... ~ Virginia Alison

Darcy rolled the quill between his fingers and looked with benign pity upon his cousin. "You should, you know. It's a wonderful feeling to be the head of your home, with a wife who adores you and whom you adore in return."

Fitzwilliam whipped out his pocket watch. "Oh, look at that. I have to run."
Ignoring him, Darcy turned his face to the fire, a besotted look in his eyes and a smile on his lips. "It's a good feeling to care for your family and their well-being. It makes you finally grow up, I can tell you." He sighed deeply and began attacking his figures once more, his mind filled with unlimited love and joy, thinking on his upcoming paternal responsibilities. "I myself find women to be unbelievably wonderful creations."

"I suppose you will continue with this treacle even as I beg you to stop."

"Well, think about it…" Darcy continued, looking up from his work.

Fitzwilliam groaned.

"They give back to you double and triple whatever little you hand them."

"I think I'm going to be ill, Darcy. Please stop."

"You hand them disparate items of food, and they give you back a wonderful meal. You provide them with four walls and a floor, and they give you back a loving home. You give them your seed," Darcy's eyes misted, his voice choked with emotion. "You give them your seed, and they give you back the most precious thing of all - a child…" They sat in silence together.

"And God help you if ~ Karen V. Wasylowski

In other words, you'll pretend to be someone else in order to snag a husband."
"Oh, for heaven's sake," she said defensively, "it's no different than what half the women in society do to catch a man. I don't want to waste my time in pointless flirtation when a little knowledge will improve my aim on the targets."
He flashed her a condescending smile.
"What is it?" she snapped.
"Only you would approach courtship as a marksman approaches a shooting match." He licked the tip of his pencil. "So who are these hapless targets?"
"The Earl of Devonmont, the Duke of Lyons, and Fernandez Valdez, the Viscount de Basto."
His jaw dropped. "Are you insane?"
"I know they're rather beyond my reach, but they seem to like my company-"
"I daresay they do!" He strode up to her, strangely angry. "The earl is a rakehell with a notorious reputation for trying to get beneath the skirts of every woman he meets. The duke's father was mad, and it's said to run in his family, which is why most women steer clear of him. And Basto is a Portuguese idiot who's too old for you and clearly trawling for some sweet young thing to nurse him in his declining years."
"How can you say such things? The only one you know personally is Lord Devonmont, and you barely know even him."
"I don't have to. Their reputations tell me they're utterly unacceptable."
Unacceptable? Three of the most eligible bachelors in London? Mr. Pinter was mad, not her. "Lord Devonmont is ~ Sabrina Jeffries

It is said in those districts that not all the trains which run on the city's tracks are listed in Metropolitan Transit's compendious schedule. The residents will tell you that after midnight, on some nights, there will be other trains, trains whose cry is different, the bellow of some great beast fighting for its life. And if you watch those trains go past, behind those bright flickering windows you will see passengers unlike any passengers you have seen when riding the trains yourself: men with wings, women with horns, beast-headed children, fauns and dryads and green-skinned people more beautiful than words can describe. In 1893, a schoolteacher swore that she saw a unicorn; in 1934, a murderer turned himself into the police, weeping, saying that he saw his victims staring at him from a train as it howled past the station platform on which he stood.
These are the seraphic trains. The stories say they run to Heaven, Hell, and Faërie. They are omens, but no one can agree on what they portend. And although you will never meet anyone who has seen or experienced it, there are persistent rumors, unkillable rumors, that sometimes, maybe once a century, maybe twice, a seraphic train will stop in its baying progress and open its doors for a mortal.
Those who know the story of Thomas the Rhymer - and even some who don't - insist that all these people, blest or damned as they may be, must be poets. ~ Sarah Monette

To run with the wolf was to run in the shadows, the dark ray of life, survival and instinct. A fierceness that was both proud and lonely, a tearing, a howling, a hunger and thirst. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst. A strength that would die fighting, kicking, screaming, that wouldn't stop until the last breath had been wrung from its body. The will to take one's place in the world. To say 'I am here.' To say 'I am. ~ O.R. Melling

There are three things you must remember about a woman. Never take her for granted. Never think you know what she is thinking. And never think you know what she will do in a given situation. A woman is like smoke. She will curl seductively around you one moment, burn your eyes the next, tickle your throat until you cough, and then poof! She is gone. She is a mirage. She is a thunderstorm. She is a sailboat on a sunny mirrored lake. She will run when you reach for her, and come to you when you wish her away. You can solve a problem. You can analyze logic. You can explain how vapor turns into water. But you cannot understand the mind of a woman. And do you know why? Because she does not understand herself."
"Then what do you do?"
"You love her and deal with her in all honesty. You earn her trust. And then you trust the Almighty, who made women the way they are, believing that He knew what He was doing."
"What if that doesn't help?"
"Blame Him. ~ Elaine Coffman

Don't you ever get tired of reading?" she asked. "You could hardly be called good company! Don't you know that, with women, you're supposed to make conversation?" she added; her half smile was perhaps meant to be ironic, though to Amedeo, who at that moment would have paid anything rather than give up his novel, it seemed downright threatening. ~ Italo Calvino

I brushed my teeth like a crazed lunatic as I examined myself in the mirror. Why couldn't I look the women in commercials who wake up in a bed with ironed sheets and a dewy complexion with their hair perfectly tousled? I wasn't fit for human eyes, let alone the piercing eyes of the sexy, magnetic Marlboro Man, who by now was walking up the stairs to my bedroom. I could hear the clomping of his boots.
The boots were in my bedroom by now, and so was the gravelly voice attached to them. "Hey," I heard him say. I patted an ice-cold washcloth on my face and said ten Hail Marys, incredulous that I would yet again find myself trapped in the prison of a bathroom with Marlboro Man, my cowboy love, on the other side of the door. What in the world was he doing there? Didn't he have some cows to wrangle? Some fence to fix? It was broad daylight; didn't he have a ranch to run? I needed to speak to him about his work ethic.
"Oh, hello," I responded through the door, ransacking the hamper in my bathroom for something, anything better than the sacrilege that adorned my body. Didn't I have any respect for myself?
I heard Marlboro Man laugh quietly. "What're you doing in there?" I found my favorite pair of faded, soft jeans.
"Hiding," I replied, stepping into them and buttoning the waist.
"Well, c'mere," he said softly.
My jeans were damp from sitting in the hamper next to a wet washcloth for two days, and the best top I could find was a cardinal and gold FIGHT ON ~ Ree Drummond

Sometimes I dream about it, I'm walking down this long empty hall. My voice echoes all around, but no one answers, so I walk faster, opening doors, shouting names. I don't even know who I'm looking for. Most nights it's my father, but sometimes it's Robb instead, or my little sister Arya, or my uncle. Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It's black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream" -Jon Snow ~ George R.R. Martin

No one has expressed what is needed better than Abdel Rahman al-Rashed, the general manager of the London-based al-Arabiya news channel. One of the best-known and most respected Arab journalists working today, he wrote the following, in Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (September 6, 2004), after a series of violent incidents involving Muslim extremist groups from Chechnya to Saudi Arabia to Iraq: "Self-cure starts with self-realization and confession. We should then run after our terrorist sons, in the full knowledge that they are the sour grapes of a deformed culture... The mosque used to be a haven, and the voice of religion used to be that of peace and reconciliation. Religious sermons were warm behests for a moral order and an ethical life. Then came the neo-Muslims. An innocent and benevolent religion, whose verses prohibit the felling of trees in the absence of urgent necessity, that calls murder the most heinous of crimes, that says explicitly that if you kill one person you have killed humanity as a whole, has been turned into a global message of hate and a universal war cry... We cannot clear our names unless we own up to the shameful fact that terrorism has become an Islamic enterprise; an almost exclusive monopoly, implemented by Muslim men and women. We cannot redeem our extremist youth, who commit all these heinous crimes, without confronting the Sheikhs who thought it ennobling to reinvent themselves as revolutionary ideologues, sending other people's sons and daughters to cer ~ Thomas L. Friedman

Many have argued with me that ambition is not the problem. Women are not less ambitious than men, they insist, but more enlightened with different and more meaningful goals. I do not dismiss or dispute this argument. There is far more to life than climbing a career ladder, including raising children, seeking personal fulfillment, contributing to society, and improving the lives of others. And there are many people who are deeply committed to their jobs but do not - and should not have to - aspire to run their organizations. Leadership roles are not the only way to have profound impact. ~ Sheryl Sandberg

A Winter Dream"

In winter we'll travel in a little pink carriage
With cushions of blue.
We'll be fine. A nest of mad kisses waits
In each corner too.

You'll shut your eyes, not to see, through the glass,
Grimacing shadows of evening,
Those snarling monsters, a crowd going past
Of black wolves and black demons.

Then you'll feel your cheek tickled quite hard…
A little kiss, like a maddened spider,
Will run over your neck…

And you'll say: "Catch it!" bowing your head,
– And we'll take our time finding that creature
– Who travels so far… ~ Arthur Rimbaud

I dream dark dreams.
I dream of a figure moving through the forest, of children flying from his path, of young women crying at his coming. I dream of snow and ice, of bare branches and moon-cast shadows. I dream of dancers floating in the air, stepping lightly even in death, and my own pain is but a faint echo of their suffering as I run. My blood is black on the snow, and the edges of the world are silvered with moonlight. I run into the darkness, and he is waiting.
I dream in black and white, and I dream of him.
I dream of Caleb, who does not exist, and I am afraid. ~ John Connolly

you are the only woman I have ever met who I would want to be in a little house with, do you see? Other women make me want to get on boats and run away. You, you make me want to stay somewhere, so that I can see your face everyday. So that I can hold you everyday and watch you grow older. You make me want to be an adult man. You make me want to settle down. ~ Lisa Jewell

The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve.
Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. An
important attribute in successful people is their impatience with negative
thinking and negative acting people. As you grow, your associates will
change. Some of your friends will not want you to go on. They will want you
to stay where they are. Friends that don't help you climb will want you to
crawl. Your friends will stretch your vision or choke your dream. Those that
don't increase you will eventually decrease you.

Consider this:
Never receive counsel from unproductive people. Never discuss your problems
with someone incapable of contributing to the solution, because those who
never succeed themselves are always first to tell you how. Not everyone has
a right to speak into your life. You are certain to get the worst of the
bargain when you exchange ideas with the wrong person. Don't follow anyone
who's not going anywhere.

With some people you spend an evening: with others you invest it. Be careful
where you stop to inquire for directions along the road of life. Wise is the
person who fortifies his life with the right friendships. If you run with
wolves, you will learn how to howl. But, if you associate with eagles, you
will learn how to soar to great heights.
"A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really ~ Colin Powell

The worst thing women can do for men, is spoil them. I see this all around. A woman thinking that the way to keep a man is by showering him like a baby, giving more than any other woman around could give. It disables men, it creates babies out of men, it removes their ability to be doers and givers. It turns them into sitting ducks. It is the worst thing women can do for men: spoil them. Yes, it ruins them for any other woman; but, not for the good reasons. I never want a woman to come into my son's life and spoil him. I will not let that happen to him. I always tell him: you be with a woman who is your equal, someone you can run with, someone who enables you to be a doer, a giver. Another wolf: someone you can run with. ~ C. JoyBell C.

I was fucked and I knew it. I had stupidly wandered into some epic rape palace run by meth-addicted hobos and bald men with beards who recently escaped nearby jails and had taken over this place for their torture sessions with hapless young women they found exploring the coast. Even worse, I was going to be the hapless woman who decided to infiltrate their headquarters. ~ Karina Halle

Home Economics & Civics
What ever happened to the two courses that were cornerstone programs of public education? For one, convenience foods made learning how to cook seem irrelevant. Home Economics was also gender driven and seemed to stratify women, even though most well paid chefs are men. Also, being considered a dead-end high school program, in a world that promotes continuing education, it has waned in popularity. With both partners in a marriage working, out of necessity or choice, career-minded couples would rather go to a restaurant or simply micro-burn a frozen pre-prepared food packet. Almost anybody that enjoys the preparation of food can make a career of it by going to a specialty school such as the Culinary Institute of America along the Hudson River in Hyde Park, New York. Also, many colleges now have programs that are directed to those that are interested in cooking as a career. However, what about those that are looking to other career paths but still have a need to effectively run a household? Who among us is still concerned with this mundane but necessary avocation that so many of us are involved with? Public Schools should be aware that the basic requirements to being successful in life include how to balance and budget a checking and a savings account. We should all be able to prepare a wholesome, nutritious and delicious meal, make a bed and clean up behind one's self, not to mention taking care of children that may become a part of the family ~ Hank Bracker

A tall, well-muscled blond man drew alongside Christian. He inclined his head to them. "Abbot," he said to Christian in greeting.
Christian seemed pleased to see him. "Falcon. It's been a long time."
"Aye. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to greet you yester eve when you arrived."
Christian offered him a lopsided grin. "'Tis well understood. I heard about your escapade with the butcher's daughter and your near miss with her father's cleaver."
Falcon laughed. "Lies all. 'Twas the tanner's daughter and her father's ax."
Christian joined his laughter. "One day, my friend, you will meet the one father who can run faster than you."
"'Tis why God gave us horses." He winked at Christian, then tilted his head so that he could see Adara. "'Tis a pleasure to meet you, Queen Adara. I am Lord Quentin of Adelsbury and my sword is ever at your disposal."
Christian gave him a meaningful stare. "And your sword had best stay sheathed, Falcon, until you're on the battlefield."
"Your warning is well taken into consideration, Abbot, along with your sword skill and horsemanship. Have no fear of me. Your wife is ever safe from my designs. But no woman is safe from my charm."
Adara couldn't help teasing the man who seemed of remarkable good spirit and cheer. "However some women might find themselves immune from it, my Lord Falcon."
"What, ho?" he said with a laugh. "Congratulations, Christian. You have found a woman as intelligent as she is ~ Kinley MacGregor

Women are considered of no value, unless they continually increase their owner's stock. They are put on a par with animals. This same master shot a woman through the head, who had run away and been brought back to him. No one called him to account for it. If a slave resisted being whipped, the bloodhounds were unpacked, and set upon him, to tear his flesh from his bones. The master who did these things was highly educated, and styled a perfect gentleman. He also boasted the name and standing of a Christian, though Satan never had a truer follower. I ~ Harriet Jacobs

The weakness of our age is in want of great men and women. It is hard to resist the current. Someone must completely detach himself from the ordinary run of politicians if he is to save politics; economists must break with the ordinary run of the mill of capital and labor commonplaces, if economics is to be saved. In other words, we need saints. These are not easy to make. First of all - because we do not always want the best; the best demands sacrifice of the ordinary and the discipline of the lower self. God, in His turn, finds it hard to give, because He gives only the best - moral perfection - and few there are who want it. As Augustine said at one point in his life, "I want to be good, dear Lord...but not now - a little later on. ~ Fulton Sheen

It's probably not just by chance that I'm alone. It would be very hard for a man to live with me, unless he's terribly strong. And if he's stronger than I, I'm the one who can't live with him. ... I'm neither smart nor stupid, but I don't think I'm a run-of-the-mill person. I've been in business without being a businesswoman, I've loved without being a woman made only for love. The two men I've loved, I think, will remember me, on earth or in heaven, because men always remember a woman who caused them concern and uneasiness. I've done my best, in regard to people and to life, without precepts, but with a taste for justice. ~ Coco Chanel

Rape culture is 1 in 6 women being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Rape culture is not even talking about the reality that many women are sexually assaulted multiple times in their lives. Rape culture is the way in which the constant threat of sexual assault affects women's daily movements. Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you're alone, if you're with a stranger, if you're in a group, if you're in a group of strangers, if it's dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you're carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you're wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who's around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who's at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest yo ~ Melissa McEwen

If you can kill it in the bedroom, chances are you can kill it in the kitchen, too - and studies have shown that men who help out more with the chores have more sex with their wives (really!). We know, gender roles run deep, which is why women in hetero relationships still end up doing the vast majority of the domestic work despite being the breadwinners in two-thirds of American homes, leaving them burned out, resentful, and, nope, not really in the mood. But it doesn't have to be this way - and, in fact, we might want to borrow a page from our LGBTQ sisters and brothers (or those who identify as neither): research shows they split chores, decisions, and finances more evenly ~ Jessica Bennett

The good performed by some of United Nations institutions, such as the World Health Organization and UNICEF, has been outweighed by the amount of bad the UN has either abetted or allowed. It has enabled genocide in Rwanda, done little or nothing to stop genocide in the Congo and Sudan, given a respectable forum to tyrannies, convened conferences (the Durban Conferences on racism) that simply became forums for anti-Semitism, and been preoccupied with vilifying one of its relatively few humane states, Israel. Its moral failings were further exemplified by its placing Qaddafi's Libya on its Human Rights Commission, Iran on its Commission on the Status of Women, and North Korea on the Nuclear Disarmament Commission. It is not that the people who run the United Nations are bad people; it is that the United Nations is run by a majority of the world's governments, and they are run by bad people. Without America in the Security Council, the bad would nearly always prevail. ~ Dennis Prager

In the Old Testament, a person in grief tore his robe and didn't run out to Kohl's to get a new one to go to church. Women cut their hair. Men shaved their beards. There was weeping and wailing. For a whole year, nobody expected you to look or be the way you were. How wonderful! But in our nutty society, the person who "keeps it together," who's "so brave," and who "looks so great - you'd never know," that's who is applauded. Grief is not the opposite of faith. Mourning is not the opposite of hope. I believe that well-meaning Christians can try to hurry us out of our mourning because we make them uncomfortable. The Bible does not say to cheer up the bereaved, but rather to "mourn with those who mourn." Christ does not say we grieve because we are deficient in faith, but rather, "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted [not rushed]" (Matthew 5:4). ~ Jennifer Saake

So now you're on the run,' Warrick said wistfully. 'Travelling the Dark Highway, a lone wolf. With your friend, who is another wolf. Two lone wolves. Two wolves, really. Not really alone. Two wolves in a car. Travelling. One of them naked and bloody. The other with her ass hanging out. ~ Derek Landy