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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!


Lois McMaster Bujold: You don't pay...

Lois McMaster Bujold: You don't pay...

You don't pay back your parents. You can't. The debt you owe them gets collected by your children, who hand it down in...

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George Eliot: But what we...

George Eliot: But what we...

But what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

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George Eliot: But what we...

George Eliot: But what we...

But what we strive to gratify, though we may call it a distant hope, is an immediate desire; the future estate for...

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Jane Austen: For what do...

Jane Austen: For what do...

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?

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Jane Austen: One does not...

Jane Austen: One does not...

One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but...

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Mary McCarthy: We all live...

Mary McCarthy: We all live...

We all live in suspense from day to day; in other words, you are the hero of your own...

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Flannery O'Connor: I am not...

Flannery O'Connor: I am not...

I am not afraid that the book will be controversial, I'm afraid it will not be...

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Maxine Kumin: With the poem,...

Maxine Kumin: With the poem,...

With the poem, I reach out to an audience equally at odds with official policy, and I celebrate our mutual humanness...

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Beah Richards: For me life...

Beah Richards: For me life...

For me life is a challenge. And it will be a challenge if I live to be 100 or if I get to be a...

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Roseanne Barr: They're all mine....

Roseanne Barr: They're all mine....

They're all mine. . . . Of course, I'd trade any one of them for a dishwasher.

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Helen Gahagan Douglas: I became active...

Helen Gahagan Douglas: I became active...

I became active in politics because I saw the possibility, if we all sat back and did nothing, of a world in which...

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Emily Dickinson: Much Madness is...

Emily Dickinson: Much Madness is...

Much Madness is divinest Sense --
To a discerning Eye --
Much Sense --the starkest Madness...

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Emily Dickinson: Fame is a...

Emily Dickinson: Fame is a...

Fame is a bee
It has a song --
It has a sting --
Ah, too, it has a wing.


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Emily Dickinson: God gave a...

Emily Dickinson: God gave a...

God gave a loaf to every bird, But just a crumb to me.

Source: In An Uncommon...

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Emily Dickinson: I dwell in...

Emily Dickinson: I dwell in...

I dwell in Possibility --
A fairer House than Prose --
More numerous of Windows --
Superior --for Doors...

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Emily Dickinson: We turn not...

Emily Dickinson: We turn not...

We turn not older with years, but newer every day.

Source: In Words of Women...

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Maria Callas: I would like...

Maria Callas: I would like...

I would like to be Maria, but there is Las Callas who demands that I carry myself with her...

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Ethel Barrymore: That's all there...

Ethel Barrymore: That's all there...

That's all there is, there isn't any more.

Source: Curtain call, 1904.
-- Ethel...

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Ava Gardner: What's the point?...

Ava Gardner: What's the point?...

What's the point? My face, shall we say, looks lived in.

Source: On not lying about...

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Shelley Long: People had been...

Shelley Long: People had been...

People had been so attached to the Diane [Cheers] character that audiences and producers found it difficult to think...

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