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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!


Mary McCarthy: The suspense of...

Mary McCarthy: The suspense of...

The suspense of a novel is not only in the reader, but in the novelist, who is intensely curious about what will...

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Mary McCarthy: I am putting...

Mary McCarthy: I am putting...

I am putting real plums into an imaginary cake.

Source: On The Group,, her 1963...

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Gloria Naylor: Not only is...

Gloria Naylor: Not only is...

Not only is your story worth telling, but it can be told in words so painstakingly eloquent that it becomes a...

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Olive Schreiner: [Finishing schools] are...

Olive Schreiner: [Finishing schools] are...

[Finishing schools] are nicely adapted machines for experimenting on the question, Into how little space a human...

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Enid Bagnold: Judges don't age....

Enid Bagnold: Judges don't age....

Judges don't age. Time decorates them.

Source: Judge, in The Chalk Garden, act...

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Pearl Buck: I don't wait...

Pearl Buck: I don't wait...

I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to...

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Annie Dillard: No child on...

Annie Dillard: No child on...

No child on earth was ever meant to be ordinary, and you can see it in them, and they know it, too, but then the times...

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Erica Jong: And the trouble...

Erica Jong: And the trouble...

And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.

Source: In...

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Katherine Paterson: A great novel...

Katherine Paterson: A great novel...

A great novel is a kind of conversion experience. We come away from it changed.

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George Eliot: Blows are sarcasms...

George Eliot: Blows are sarcasms...

Blows are sarcasms turned stupid.

Source: In Correct Quotes for DOS, WordStar...

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Elizabeth Bowen: Some people are...

Elizabeth Bowen: Some people are...

Some people are molded by their admirations, others by their hostilities.

Source:...

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Annie Dillard: Every book has...

Annie Dillard: Every book has...

Every book has an intrinsic impossibility, which its writer discovers as soon as his first excitement...

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Anais Nin: We don't see...

Anais Nin: We don't see...

We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.

Source: In The Speaker's...

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Natalia Ginzburg: As soon as...

Natalia Ginzburg: As soon as...

As soon as we see our dreams betrayed we realize that the intensest joys of our life have nothing to do with reality,...

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Maxine Hong Kingston: I learned to...

Maxine Hong Kingston: I learned to...

I learned to make my mind large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for...

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Lydia M Child: Every human being...

Lydia M Child: Every human being...

Every human being has, like Socrates, an attendant spirit; and wise are they who obey its signals. If it does not...

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Marian Anderson: When I sing,...

Marian Anderson: When I sing,...

When I sing, I don't want them to see that my face is black; I don't want them to see that my face is white -- I want...

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Joni Mitchell: There are things...

Joni Mitchell: There are things...

There are things to confess that enrich the world, and things that need not be said.

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Whoopi Goldberg: The art of...

Whoopi Goldberg: The art of...

The art of acting is to be other than what you are.

Source: In What's Whoopi...

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Mary Tyler Moore: I'm an experienced...

Mary Tyler Moore: I'm an experienced...

I'm an experienced woman; I've been around . . . well, alright, I might not've been around, but I've been . . ....

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