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Quotable Women, like BeMoreCreative.com, encourages thinking, working, and living more creatively. Creativity is "the power to connect the seemingly unconnected" (W. Plommer). To support this work, we earn a small affiliate commission. Please browse creatively!


Elizabeth Bowen: One can live...

Elizabeth Bowen: One can live...

One can live in the shadow of an idea without grasping it.

Source: The Heat of the...

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Iris Murdoch: A bad review...

Iris Murdoch: A bad review...

A bad review is even less important than whether it is raining in Patagonia.

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Colette: It is wise...

Colette: It is wise...

It is wise to apply the oil of refined politeness to the mechanism of friendship.

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Pearl Buck: Sometimes I would...

Pearl Buck: Sometimes I would...

Sometimes I would almost rather have people take away years of my life than take away a...

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Pearl Buck: Be born anywhere,...

Pearl Buck: Be born anywhere,...

Be born anywhere, little embryo novelist, but do not be born under the shadow of a great creed, not under the burden...

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Annie Dillard: I woke in...

Annie Dillard: I woke in...

I woke in bits, like all children, piecemeal over the years. I discovered myself and the world, and forgot them, and...

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Annie Dillard: I don't know...

Annie Dillard: I don't know...

I don't know what it is about fecundity that so appalls. I suppose it is the teeming evidence that birth and growth,...

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Gertrude Stein: The unreal is...

Gertrude Stein: The unreal is...

The unreal is natural, so natural that it makes of unreality the most natural of anything natural. That is what...

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Gertrude Stein: It is extraordinary...

Gertrude Stein: It is extraordinary...

It is extraordinary that whole populations have no projects for the future, none at all. It certainly is...

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Agatha Christie: We owe most...

Agatha Christie: We owe most...

We owe most of our great inventions and most of the achievements of genius to idleness-either enforced or...

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Erica Jong: Writing is one...

Erica Jong: Writing is one...

Writing is one of the few professions left where you take all the responsibility for what you do. It's really...

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Maria Edgeworth: The human heart,...

Maria Edgeworth: The human heart,...

The human heart, at whatever age, opens only to the heart that opens in return.

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Margery Allingham: When one kicks...

Margery Allingham: When one kicks...

When one kicks over a tea table and smashes everything but the sugar bowl, one may as well pick that up and drop it on...

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Jane Austen: Where an opinion...

Jane Austen: Where an opinion...

Where an opinion is general, it is usually correct.

Source: Mary Crawford, in...

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Mary McCarthy: It has to...

Mary McCarthy: It has to...

It has to be acknowledged that in capitalist society, with its herds of hippies, originality has become a sort of...

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Edna O'Brien: I'm a tuning...

Edna O'Brien: I'm a tuning...

I'm a tuning fork, tense and twanging all the time.

Source: In An Uncommon Scold,...

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Anne Tyler: I'ts true that...

Anne Tyler: I'ts true that...

I'ts true that it [writing] is a solitary occupation, but you would be surprised at how much companionship a group of...

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Anne Sophie Swetchine: Travel is the...

Anne Sophie Swetchine: Travel is the...

Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious part of frivolous ones.

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Marguerite Duras: Nowhere is one...

Marguerite Duras: Nowhere is one...

Nowhere is one more alone than in Paris. . . and yet surrounded by crowds. Nowhere is one more likely to incur greater...

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Anne Tyler: I've always thought...

Anne Tyler: I've always thought...

I've always thought a hotel ought to offer optional small animals. . . . I mean a cat to sleep on your bed at night,...

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