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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!


Emily Bronte: Proud people breed...

Emily Bronte: Proud people breed...

Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves. [Nelly, in Wuthering Heights]

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Eleanor Roosevelt: I could not,...

Eleanor Roosevelt: I could not,...

I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived...

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Elizabeth Dole: What you always...

Elizabeth Dole: What you always...

What you always do before you make a decision is consult. The best public policy is made when you are listening to...

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Margaret Drabble: Why can't people...

Margaret Drabble: Why can't people...

Why can't people be both flexible and efficient?

Source: The Middle Ground,...

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Lillian Smith: To believe in...

Lillian Smith: To believe in...

To believe in something not yet proved and to underwrite it with our lives: it is the only way we can leave the future...

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Marguerite Yourcenar: A young musician...

Marguerite Yourcenar: A young musician...

A young musician plays scales in his room and only bores his family. A beginning writer, on the other hand, sometimes...

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Olive Schreiner: How hard it...

Olive Schreiner: How hard it...

How hard it is to make your thoughts look anything but imbecile fools when you paint them with ink on...

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Elizabeth Bowen: Let's face it...

Elizabeth Bowen: Let's face it...

Let's face it -- who ever is adequate? We all create situations each other can't live up to, then break our hearts at...

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Annie Dillard: There is no...

Annie Dillard: There is no...

There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by.

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Annie Dillard: Just once I...

Annie Dillard: Just once I...

Just once I wanted a task that required all the joy I had. Day after day I had noticed that if I waited long enough,...

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Margaret Atwood: The Eskimo has...

Margaret Atwood: The Eskimo has...

The Eskimo has fifty-two names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for...

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Djuna Barnes: To love without...

Djuna Barnes: To love without...

To love without criticism is to be betrayed.

Source: Nightwood, 1937.
-- Djuna...

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Willa Cather: What was any...

Willa Cather: What was any...

What was any art but an effort to make a sheath, a mold in which to imprison for a moment the shining, elusive element...

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Willa Cather: Religion and art...

Willa Cather: Religion and art...

Religion and art spring from the same root and are close kin. Economics and art are...

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Toni Cade Bambara: Our lives preserved....

Toni Cade Bambara: Our lives preserved....

Our lives preserved. How it was; and how it be. Passing it along in the relay. That is what I work to do: to produce...

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Margaret Atwood: Gardening is not...

Margaret Atwood: Gardening is not...

Gardening is not a rational act.

Source: Bluebeard's Egg/ 1986
-- Margaret...

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Cynthia Ozick: The engineering is...

Cynthia Ozick: The engineering is...

The engineering is secondary to the vision.

Source: In The Speaker's Electronic...

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Jean Stafford: Indeed, the sole...

Jean Stafford: Indeed, the sole...

Indeed, the sole criticism of him was that he prolonged beyond the point of decency, his look of nuptial rapture and...

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Elizabeth Stuart Phelps: It is not...

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps: It is not...

It is not the straining for great things that is most effective; it is the doing the little things, the common duties,...

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Francoise Sagan: It seems to...

Francoise Sagan: It seems to...

It seems to me that there are two kinds of trickery: the fronts people assume before one another's eyes, and the front...

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