Quotable Women
An Archive of
Memorable Quotes by Women

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Dear Abby (Pauline Phillips):
If we could sell our experiences for what they cost us, we'd all be millionaires.

Dear Abby (Pauline Phillips):
If you don't value what you have, you're sure to lose it.

Dear Abby (Pauline Phillips):
Love is what enables us to bridge the gap of disappointment when others don't live up to the expectations we have of them.

Dear Abby (Pauline Phillips):
Many husbands today pitch in to help with household chores — it's called partnership.

Dear Abby (Pauline Phillips):
The most unwelcome advice in the world is that which is unasked for.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
A good marriage is a solid partnership between two people who respect each other, care about each other and are mutually attracted. It helps if both have similar goals and values, and are willing to support each other in good times and in bad. Marriage takes work, patience and willingness to compromise. Communication, which includes listening, is key.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
A man who doesn't make you feel special, wanted or important would make a very poor husband.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Because a jackass brays doesn't mean you have to take it to heart.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Because there can be consequences for saying the first thing that pops into our heads, it is prudent to exercise tact.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Being "in love" shouldn't cause stress; it should relieve it.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Charm lasts longer than beauty.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Cosmetic surgery can do wonders for a person's sagging ego. But your appearance should not be the focus of your life because, frankly, it isn't healthy.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Communication is the key to successful relationships.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Cosmetic surgery can do wonders for a person's sagging ego. But your appearance should not be the focus of your life because, frankly, it isn't healthy.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Couples who last are those who make an effort to show each other they love each other every day.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
[to a man asking for advice] Do not get into a squabble between two women.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Do not jump the gun because of gossip.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
"Great guys" can make great husbands.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
If you want a healthy marriage, stop competing with a dead man.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
In any successful relationship, communication is key. Chemistry is important, but it has to be mutual. You will know it when you find it.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
It is a huge mistake to compete with dead people.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
It isn't always necessary to write an opus. Many times it's sufficient to just answer the question.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
It takes only a moment to say something nice to someone, of any age, who needs the attention.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
It takes time to really get to know someone. Take the time because in the early months of a relationship, both parties are in the "selling" phase.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
It's impossible to maintain a relationship with someone who doesn't want one.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
It's one thing to be open-minded and quite another to be so open-minded your brains fall out.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Just because a jackass brays does not mean you have to pay attention.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Like a stone thrown into a pond, a good deed can create ripples that extend far beyond the initial splash.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Love is blind and often deaf.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Make no important decisions while you are still grieving. It's practical advice, and those who follow it usually have fewer regrets than those who jump the gun.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Marriage is a big adjustment for anyone — male or female. There is no guarantee that a person who has become set in his or her ways can successfully make that transition.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Men like women who are fun to be around, who are kind, intelligent, honest and who don't play games.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Much as we might wish it, looks don't always last forever. That's why, if you're looking for a long-term relationship, it's extremely important to take into consideration qualities that will last.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Nobody has as much money as others assume they do.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
People who are angry at themselves sometimes blame others. It's a sign of immaturity.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
People who love each other try to protect each other.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Pets require feeding, training, affection and exercise, but in return they offer unconditional love and companionship.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Repeat after me: We cannot change other people. We can only change the way we react to them.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
[to a teenage girl] Resolve to be economically independent before you marry anyone.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Sometimes the most important conversations are the most difficult to engage in.
Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Staying in a marriage without love is like serving a life sentence with an incompatible cell mate.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Sometimes funerals and weddings bring out the worst rather than the best in people.  (Sunday, May 3, 2015)
(Compare to Ask Amy on the same day)

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Sometimes the harder we try to sell something, the more resistant the buyer becomes.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Staying in a marriage without love is like serving a life sentence with an incompatible cell mate.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Take it from a professional: the most unwelcome advice is that which is unasked for.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
The best exercise in the world is to bend down and help someone up.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
The greatest gift is the gift of self.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
The harder you try to control your girlfriend the further you'll drive her away, so stop acting like a dumbbell.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
The surest way to avoid being used is not to allow it.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
The surest way to get what you need is to communicate.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
We can't change other people, but we can change the way we react to them.  (Sunday, October 15, 2017)
(Compare to Ask Amy on the same day)

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
We can't change other people. We can, however, change ourselves, and by doing so, change the way we react to them.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
We live in a stressful society in which many individuals feel lost and alone.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
Weddings and funerals can bring out the worst in people.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
What other people think is their problem.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
When mankind was created, a delete button should have been installed at the end of our tongues. However, it's possible our creator thought common sense would suffice.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
When you tell a person something bothers you, and that person not only doesn't do something about it but blames you, it's a red flag.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
You can accomplish more with an economy of words than with a deluge.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
You have only one life to live, so live it without worrying about what others may think.

Dear Abby (Jeanne Phillips):
You never can tell where life may lead, so the more talents you nourish, the wider your options will be.

Dawn Adams:
Show me the books he loves and I shall know the man far better than through mortal friends.

Rachael Aguirre:
If you don't have any goals, you can't fail.

Elizabeth Adamson:
Baby: an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other.

Katrina Alcorn:
We're expected to do our jobs as if we don't have children, and then raise our children as if we don't have jobs.

Louisa May Alcott:
"Stay" is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary.

Louisa May Alcott:
I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning to sail my ship.

Gracie Allen:
When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half.

Kirstie Alley:
You are not in business to be popular.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
A most gracious host accepts people as they are, annoying quirks and all.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
A peaceful wind down to the day enables the family to enter the night unfettered by unresolved disputes and anxieties.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
A person who clings to the concept of "fairness" has not absorbed what it really means to be a parent or a partner.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
A threat is a promise followed by a consequence.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Absence really can make the heart grow fonder, even when the [man's] feet wander.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
All of us who fall deeply in love find that our love object makes us want to be a better, healthier person.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
All promises are empty — until they are fulfilled.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Almost any group of three is going to form a triangle, with two points closer to one another.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Anxiety is one consequence of growing up in a verbally and emotionally abusive household.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Ask 10 people about their family relationships and at least five of them will report an estrangement.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Attraction happens when you feel important, valued, appreciated and wanted.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Being alone is almost always preferable to being with the wrong person.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Being inclusive sometimes means being kind toward people whose views are repugnant. Bbut you should only do so if it is physically and emotionally safe for you.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Boredom has an important function, because pushing through it can unleash creativity.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Bullies never want to acknowledge their own actions. They want to move through life without reflection or apology.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Bullies often act out by marshaling aggression to cover up for insecurity.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Bullies receive their fuel from others' reactions: fear, intimidation, bewilderment � along with the drama of dominance. Don't feed the beast.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Caring for children and dogs requires patience, gentleness, and firm and loving course corrections.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Chasing someone who doesn't really want to get caught simply doesn't work.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Climb aboard life's elevator, hit the "up" button, and see where it takes you.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Complaining doesn't get you anywhere. It brings you down and depresses the people around you.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Consenting adults will do what consenting adults will do, and they have a right to their choices, unless they harm children or scare the horses.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Couples who have been together for a long time say the key to staying together is to work as a team toward the greater good, tolerating some tough (even tragic) times to grow together and work toward a mature kind of union.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Deactivating your Facebook account should be seen as a sign of mental health.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Deep involvement in someone else's romantic drama seldom turns out well for anyone.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Detach from your anxious need to have what you think other couples have, and you are going to feel more in control and better about yourself.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
"Don't be stupid!" is excellent advice.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Do not make your current partner pay for the crimes and misdemeanors of your previous partners.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Every person out there has a story.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Every relationship needs to be nurtured in order to thrive. When people talk about marriage being 'work', this is what they are talking about: Couples doing the work to make the relationship work is healthy.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Everybody struggles.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Family estrangement is never ideal. It doesn't feel natural, and it doesn't seem right, but estrangement is quite common in families, though it is seldom acknowledged.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Family life is not a seamless journey, but a series of challenges.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Feeling disloyal is a natural consequence of being disloyal. So don't be disloyal.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Friends tell each other the truth, and then friends stick around for the aftermath.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Friendships can survive after massive disappointment, but only if both parties are honest with one another.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Grief is isolating; people who are grieving feel alone.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Groveling for connection from someone who compares you to Hitler is not good for a person's self-esteem.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Have you ever noticed how bored people are also boring?

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
He sounds like someone who might best be loved from a distance.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Healthy relationships are fueled by a wonderful feeling of balance, where you simply stop caring who does what, because it all seems to work out in the end.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Healthy boundaries are important, but you may be building a brick wall when a picket fence would do.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
I believe that everyone deserves love, and sometimes looking outside your own culture is a good way to find it.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
I don't know how to start a movement, but I do know how to use my own voice.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
I don't see the need for a constructive conversation here. Your guy is being a baby.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
[from a reader] I hope she learns to look for the joy in life instead of picking out negatives — it will change her life for the better.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
I succumbed to the temptation to provide a half-truth, which is also, I realize, a half-lie.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
I think that, on some level, everybody lives vicariously through couples who are getting married.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
If I had a litmus test to determine if love was sincere, I would have patented it (and used it on my ex-husband).

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
If it were possible for parents to make children break up with partners the parents don't like, everybody would do it, and the world as we know it would fold in on itself like a dark star.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
If nothing changes, you will have to put your disappointment in perspective.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
If people thought more, we'd all have less to amuse us.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
If you assume your family members will behave well, they might surprise you.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
If you feel guilty about not "playing nice," then you could easily alleviate your guilt by playing nice.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
If you let your bitterness rule the day, nobody wins.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
If you miss one moment of enjoying your own life and relationships because you're trying to punish someone else, the bad guy wins.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
If you turn the heat down on the relationship, she will soften, the tension will lessen, and she will eventually inch closer to you. Don't go in for the hug until you achieve a handshake.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
If you want somebody to do something for you, it's best to be charming about it beforehand, and grateful about it afterward.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
If you've got a good book with you, you're never bored (or alone).

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
If you're wondering if something is appropriate, it probably isn't.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
In a partnership the person with the lower libido will control the connection.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
In life, you don't get instant satisfaction. In life, you get to slog. You work. You grow. You take the long view. You fill the void with self-actualization.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
In the name of friendship you should make sure your door is always open to listen. Don't feel you need to provide unsolicited possible solutions, answers or even ideas. Listening without judgment and offering assistance when asked should be enough. That's friendship's high calling.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
In-laws do not need to like one another to have a relationship. They only need to keep their eye on the prize: family harmony and peaceful, healthy relationships with the children.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
In marriage, both parties should prioritize the marriage as the central relationship in their lives. This can be a rough adjustment for some people as their other relationships shift and change.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Individuals who are uncomfortable with themselves sometimes emit vibes that make others uncomfortable.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
It can be very tempting to try to win over someone who is remote, or emotionally (or physically) unattainable.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
It is an unfortunate fact of life that sometimes we simply must disappoint people in order to see to our own needs.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
It is natural to consider pulling back from people who don't appreciate or reciprocate.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
It is natural, in times of stress, to view events through your own fun house mirror, but you need to realize that this creates distortions. Realizing this will liberate you from feeling responsible for other peoples' choices.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
It is not "keeping the peace" when someone demands you do something and you give in to that demand. Keeping the peace implies a joint effort.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
It is surprising how often family members will actively disable a loved one's efforts to be healthy.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
It's good to be "on guard" if you want to catch someone doing something you don't like.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Knowledge gleaned from Facebook photos and posts has a way of sticking in a person's head so that it seems experiential.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Life is both short and complicated. People sometimes make baffling choices.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Life is easier when you are comfortable in your own skin.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
"Life is not fair" is a lesson I learned the hard way.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Life is short. Fun is necessary.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Life is weird. And guess what makes it weird? People.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Living beautifully and being happy is the best response to the petty slings and darts others occasionally lob our way. Enjoy your day.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Love is an irrational force, making humans do all sorts of strange and wonderful things like write poetry and take up the ukulele.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Love is easy to talk about but sometimes hard to achieve.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Liars make terrible partners and terrible friends.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Only a fool argues with a drunk.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Many of us are loosely encased in families composed of some people we would not choose as friends.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Many people misdirect their stress reaction toward people who they know won't call them on it.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Many personal problems would be avoided if we all just valued ourselves more.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Marriage is an intimate relationship between two people. It is a bad idea to involve a third party.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Mature people must find their own ways to cope with their own temptations.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Medication can make your depression symptoms manageable, but no medication can solve life's problems.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Modern life has removed many of us from the important rituals surrounding death. We are emotionally estranged.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Most of us have someone on the periphery of our lives who irrationally solicits strong feelings of jealousy or schadenfreude.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
My business card should read, "Ask Amy: Protecting for the downside since 1981."

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
"Nags" nag because they feel they aren't being heard.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Needy and boring parents tend to have needy and bored children.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Not every relationship can be altered to fit.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Nurturing a human life requires adults to dig deep, recalibrate and surrender to the concept that life is not fair.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
One downside of being an optimist is that optimistic people tend to forget yesterday's trauma in the belief that everything will turn out well. This can keep people in bad relationships because they genuinely believe that things will always improve.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
One hazard of dating after divorce is bringing along the ghosts of other partners when you're trying to date again.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
One of the benefits of being divorced is that you no longer need to listen to your ex's assessment of the appropriateness of your actions.  (Tuesday, June 24, 2014)
(Compare to Miss Manners on Wednesday, April 24, 2019)

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
One of the pleasures of having adult children is that there is no longer a need to fight every battle for them.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
One of the privileges of adulthood is that you get to love the person you want to love.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
One of the privileges of adulthood is that your parents don't get to tell you what to do.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
One person gets to decide if something is a problem in a relationship.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
One reason playground play is so important in primary school is that it gives kids the opportunity to learn and practice important social skills involving boundaries, sharing, winning and losing.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Our children do not necessarily care if we are happy. They care if they are happy.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Parenting is not an exact science. The only perfect parents are people like you, who don't have children.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Parents almost never treat all of their children completely equally. The idea is that in happy families, things generally even out in the end.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Part of your job is to treat all customers as if they have the potential to be wonderful. It might inspire them to behave well.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Partners should commit to working things out (sometimes arguing things out) without the threat of walking out.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
People irrationally attach feelings to all sorts of objects.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
People don't always behave well, especially in situations where they can rightly claim they "don't know what to do".

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
People don't change when they don't acknowledge their actions.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
People duct tape themselves to their own drama, heedless of the impact on others.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
People who are combative in one relationship tend to be combative in other relationships.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
People who are overly controlling are trying to tamp down their own anxiety by trafficking in perfection.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Perspective is the enemy of long-lost love.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Regret amplifies grief.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Reunions are minefields, where each of us has to navigate around previous versions of ourselves— and one another.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Siblings are trapped in a complex web of attraction and rejection.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Sisters seem to have a special ability to crush and disappoint one another.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Social media has made it easy — and tempting — to go shopping for company, especially when you're bored, stressed or overwhelmed.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Sometimes the way through someone's tough outer shell is to do something obvious, thoughtful and sweet.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Sometimes toxic people are so resistant to change that therapy does not really help them — but they send everybody else into therapy to find ways to cope.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Sometimes, siblings are the last people who can accept the reality of who you are, because they have a lifetime of history and experiences and expectations with you, and for their own reasons they need you to always conform to their idea of you.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Sometimes, unfortunately, death brings out the very worst in people. If they don't know what to do, they do nothing, and there is nothing worse than doing nothing when someone else is hurting.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
The ability to be in peaceful proximity to people who don't like us is one mark of mature adulthood.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
The ability to break a loved one's heart is the essential contradiction in human relationships.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
The basic rule of relationships applies at any age: You get what you will settle for.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
The best way to cope with anxiety is to break down your challenges and make choices concerning each one.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
The best way to have relationships with people is to spend time with them. Shared experiences lead to shared memories. These memories help to form a foundation of relatedness.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
The essence of mature attachment is the ease of feeling completely unguarded and secure.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
The fullness of life is incubated in its messy places.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
There are times when the only thing standing between you and your fear is the inner knowledge that there is a "right thing" to do. Put all of your anxieties into a basket and devise a test for yourself: What if every single anxiety comes true and you walk into a big, messy pile of unpleasantness? Welcome to humanity.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
There is a glory and grace in taking care of another human being.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
There is no loneliness quite as deep as being in a marriage with someone who doesn't really want it.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
There is no loneliness quite like the loneliness you feel when you're with someone who doesn't "see" you.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
There is nothing more painful than being rejected simply for being who you are.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
There is true freedom in letting go.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
This is a tough situation. But it is what it is, and time has an amazing way of knitting together solutions as long as everybody stays calm and resolves to be as gentle and patient as possible.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
"Tough it out" kinds of people tend to be tough on others.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Unreliability is the enemy of friendship.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Unsolicited advice is always self-serving.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
We human beings are definitely capable of loving more than one person, but it seems to go more smoothly if we don't love more than one person at a time.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
We seldom regret the things we don't say.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Weddings and funerals are when you figure out who your real friends are.  (Sunday, May 3, 2015)
(Compare to Dear Abby on the same day)

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Welcome mats point in both directions.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
When applied to marriage, the phrase "I'd rather be dead" is a sign that it is time to exit. (Measuring your sexual frequency in terms of millennia is another bad sign).

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
When you bring your own food, you know exactly what you are getting.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
When faced with divulging a secret, the questions to resolve are "Who would benefit?" and "What good would it do?"

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
When it comes to finding the right partner, my advice is to choose wisely and act kindly.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
When safety meets stupidity, stupidity always wins.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
When someone repeatedly insists that something isn't true, it increases the likelihood that it is.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
When the choice is between a demanding relationship and a vintage pickup truck, I'll choose the truck every time.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
When you are criticizing someone, you should speak only to your own experience — not others'.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
When you are wondering whether to say something negative about someone — even if it is true — the best rule to follow is, "I'll think about doing this tomorrow."

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
When you have a book, you are never alone. Reading unlocks worlds of imagination and creativity. Literacy imparts real power, and this is especially important for people who feel powerless.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
When you choose a partner in late-life, you are really picking out the person you would most like to push your wheelchair.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
When you start to stand up for what you want, you will start to get what you want.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
When you're a parent, sometimes it seems that everyone else is on the dance floor, while you are left to guard their purses.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
[with respect to getting someone to marry you] When you're with the right person, this question can become surprisingly and seamlessly easy.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
[from a reader] Whenever I feel myself resenting someone, I reach out. I have made good friends that way.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Why are we here, if not to make choices and judgments and to gently guide our younger loved ones?

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
You can lead a man to therapy, but you can't make him heal.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
You cannot beat the clock. My advice is to grab your moments of grace and enjoy them while they last.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
You cannot tie your fiancé to the railroad track of self-reflection and personal improvement.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
You might be right, but your husband is being kind. Which would you rather be?

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
You must give and receive love only when doing so doesn't hurt others. That's the ethical path, and you should gain strength from walking it.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
You need to start behaving like the person you want to attract.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
You should do what you want, but I think you should also consider wanting something different.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
You should not be hovering in the background, inflating the drama. Simply envelop him in love and affection and let him know that you will support his efforts, whatever they are.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
You should not propose marriage until you have resolved your feelings about your ex.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
You should worry because it is every responsible, sentient parent's job to worry.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Your daughter isn't destroying her life. She is living her life. The sooner you give up trying to control her, the happier you will be.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Your feelings are your own to manage.
(Sunday, October 15, 2017)
(Compare to Dear Abby on the same day)

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Your granddaughter's rude response is the aggressive way many immature people respond when they get caught and feel guilty about it.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Your job in life is to look after yourself and to find ways to get what you need — emotionally and otherwise — so that you live your best possible life, without being mired in anger and hurt over the past.

Ask Amy (Amy Dickenson):
Your son's beliefs don't matter one whit while he is at your table. His behavior does matter.

Judith Anderson:
There is nothing enduring in life for a women except what she builds in a man's heart.

Margaret Anderson:
It is rarely that you see an American writer who is not hopelessly sane.

Marian Anderson:
As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.

Julie Andrews:
Sometimes I'm so sweet even I can't stand it.

Maya Angelou:
A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.

Maya Angelou:
I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.

Maya Angelou:
If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don't be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning "Good morning" at total strangers.

Maya Angelou:
People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. Put people will never forget how you made them feel.

Maya Angelou:
The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
A compatible marriage doesn't necessarily require passion for each other, only a commitment to the stability of the relationship.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
Doing interesting things will make you more interesting to be around.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
Having a man in your life does not determine your level of happiness. Too many women believe otherwise.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
High school doesn't last forever.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
His complaints are irrational and self-centered. We don't recommend arguing with him. He won't see things your way. Placate and ignore.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
It's a painful lesson to learn that love isn't always enough to turn someone into marriage material.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
It is not unusual for couples in their 40s and 50s to reassess their lives, wondering where their youthful dreams went.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
No one should go through life believing they are not worth liking. Figure it out and then work on changing it.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
People who are deeply religious often do not understand how offensive their religious demands are to people who do not share their beliefs.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
People who take advantage of others are always the first to cry "foul" when things don't go their way.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
Please remember that 350 Facebook "friends" do not equal one or two real-life supportive friends.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
Some people feel an overwhelming need to display their "knowledge", even when they are ill-informed. It is not as flattering to them as they may believe.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
There is no point creating ill will with one's spouse if it could easily be avoided.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
Things are misplaced all the time, and others are often blamed.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
You may not think she deserves such consideration, but you are more likely to get the result you want if she doesn't feel obligated to defend herself.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
You should not have to jump through hoops to please someone who isn't interested.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
[from a reader] We can achieve peace by changing our own attitude when we find ourselves dealing with an unpleasant person. This mindset does not require that we like the person, but it does enable us to maintain our own calm politeness and avoid the pitfalls of trying to force others to make changes they may resent.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
We wish people would train themselves to think generous thoughts before making assumptions that lead to being unkind.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
Weddings represent the joining of families and, as such, should not become grudge matches.

Annie's Mailbox (Marcy Sugar & Kathy Mitchell):
Women often don't realize how much men need physical touch to feel loved.

Anonymous young woman in supermarket:
Now that I'm working with customers all day long, I'm starting to hate everybody.

Susan B. Anthony:
I think the girl who is able to earn her own living and pay her own way should be as happy as anybody on earth.

Susan B. Anthony:
Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.

Minna Antrim:
A homely face and no figure have aided many women heavenward.

Minna Antrim:
Man forgives woman anything save the wit to outwit him.

Vicky Aragon:
What it comes down to is that anybody can win with the best horse. What makes you good is if you can take the second- or third-best horse and win.

Elizabeth Arden:
I'm not interested in age. People who tell me their age are silly. You're as old as you feel.

Hannah Arendt:
The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.

Hannah Arendt:
Under conditions of tyranny it is far easer to act than to think.

Hannah Arendt:
War has become a luxury that only small nations can afford.

Leah Arendt:
Do not do what you would undo if caught.

Mary Kay Ash:
Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from their neck saying, "Make me feel important". Never forget this message when working with people.

Mary Kay Ash:
If you think you can, you're right; and if you think you can't, you're right.

Elizabeth Ashley:
Absence does not make the heart grow fonder, but it sure heats up the blood.

Nancy Astor:
The penalty of success is to be bored by people who used to snub you.

Jane Austen:
In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels.

Jane Austen:
One cannot be always laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.

Jane Austen:
There is safety in reserve, but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.

Jane Austen:
With men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, every feature works.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Beatrix B. ['Ask Amy' commentator]:
Embarrassment has always been a better motivator than nagging.

Eve Babitz:
By the time I'd grown up, I naturally supposed that I'd grown up.

Lauren Bacall:
In Hollywood, an equitable divorce settlement means each party getting fifty percent of the publicity.

Joan Baez:
Action is the antidote to despair.

Joan Baez:
You don't get to choose how you're going to die, or when. You can only decide how you're going to live now.

Pearl Bailey:
There is a way to look at the past. Don't hide from it. It will not catch you — if you don't repeat it.

Faith Baldwin:
Time is a dressmaker specializing in alterations.

Lucille Ball:
You see much more of your children once they leave home.

Tallulah Bankhead:
(On seeing a former lover for the first time in years) I thought I told you to wait in the car.

Tallulah Bankhead:
If I had my life to live again. I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.

Tallulah Bankhead:
It's one of the tragic ironies of the theatre that only one man in it can count on steady work — the night watchman.

Tallulah Bankhead:
Only good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don't have time.

Brigitte Bardot:
It is better to be unfaithful than to be faithful without wanting to be.

Milica Barjaktarovic:
Peaceful coexistence is all a matter of resources. When people have enough money, they are quiet.

Dawn Barnes:
I teach kids what I always wanted to learn when I was little.

Roseanne Barr:
Experts say you should never hit your children in anger. When is a good time? When you're feeling festive?

Roseanne Barr:
In Tulsa, restaurants have signs that say, "Sorry, we're open".

Roseanne Barr:
My husband and I didn't sign a pre-nuptial agreement. We signed a mutual suicide pact.

Roseanne Barr:
Women complain about premenstrual syndrome, but I think of it as the only time of the month when I can be myself.

Colleen C. Barrett:
Work is either fun or drudgery. It depends on your attitude. I like fun.

Kathryn Barrett:
People don't set prices, the market sets prices.

Kathryn Barrett:
Should I write a guide to raising teenagers? Three hundred pages of ranting? I could condense it all into a short video of me banging my head on the wall — and I have great kids! Thank god for cats.

Kathryn Barrett:
Your brain has a mind of its own.

Lisa Feldman Barrett:
Everyone used to believe something that seemed correct, but boy were we wrong! Now the fascinating truth is here.

Lisa Feldman Barrett:
If you change your current experiences today, you can change who you become tomorrow.

Lisa Feldman Barrett:
It's hard to give up the classical view, when it represents deeply held beliefs about what it means to be human.

Lisa Feldman Barrett:
Once upon a time, people didn't know very much, but we've learned more and more over the years, and today we know lots of stuff.

Lisa Feldman Barrett:
Perceptions of emotion are guesses. Anytime you think you know how someone feels, your confidence has nothing to do with actual knowledge.

Lisa Feldman Barrett:
When mountains of contrary data don't force people to give up their ideas, they are no longer following the scientific method. They are following an ideology.

Gina Barreca:
[if you are at attractive woman] You can't have people look at you and listen to you at the same time.

Gina Barreca:
There's a line in the sand for women: On one side, there's too funny to be sexy, and on the other, there's too sexy to be funny. Trying to straddle that line doesn't often end well.

Gina Barreca:
Women lead with their vulnerabilities. This is how we get men and other women to like us.

Lynda Barry:
If it is your time, love will track you down like a cruise missile.

Ethel Barrymore:
You grow up the day you have your first real laugh at yourself.

Ethel Barrymore:
You must learn day by day, year by year, to broaden your horizon. The more things you love, the more you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about, the more you have left when anything happens.

Clara Barton:
I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them.

Stephanie Bashir:
Life seems less stressful and more rewarding when fully lived, when we are not always stressed about where we're going and what we're getting.

Hada Bejar:
The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.

Kristin Bell:
Work hard and be nice to people.

Lillian Bell:
It is really asking too much of a woman to expect her to bring up her husband and her children too?

Ruth Benedict:
Our faith in the present dies out long before our faith in the future.

Sally Berger:
The secret of getting ahead is getting started.

Ingrid Bergman:
A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.

Ingrid Bergman:
Happiness is good health and a bad memory.

Ingrid Bergman:
(who played a mysterious, alluring woman in the movie "Casablanca")
I feel sometimes people are disappointed when they meet me because they are expecting Isla from Casablanca, and instead they get Ingrid from Stockholm.
(Compare to Rita Hayworth)

Jenna Betti:
A real man can stay loyal to his woman without getting sidetracked by easy girls.

Shirley Temple Black:
(Who was a child movie star) I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.

Alice Stone Blackwell:
Justice is better than chivalry if we cannot have both.

Mary Bly:
A stale mind is the devil's breadbox.

Mary Bly:
Dogs come when they're called. Cats take a message and get back to you.

Deborah Boehm:
You should never name an animal which is not yours to keep, or which you intend to eat.

Martha Bolton:
If you think marriage is going to be perfect, you're probably still at your reception.

Erma Bombeck:
I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.

Erma Bombeck:
Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.

Erma Bombeck:
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me."

Elayne Boolser:
We have women in the military, but they don't put us in the front lines. They don't know if we can fight or if we can kill. I think we can. All the general has to do is walk over to the women and say, "You see the enemy over there? They say you look fat in those uniforms."

Lesley Boone.:
I tried to commit suicide by sticking my head in the oven, but there was a cake in it.

Elayne Boosler:
Ever notice that Soup For One is eight aisles away from Party Mix?

Elayne Boosler:
I've never been married, but I tell people I'm divorced so they won't think something's wrong with me.

Elayne Boosler:
When the sun comes up, I have morals again.

Phyllis Bottome:
There are two ways of meeting difficulties. You alter the difficulties or you alter yourself to meet them.

Catherine Drinker Bowen:
Writers seldom choose as friends those self-contained characters who are never in trouble, never unhappy or ill, never make mistakes, and always count their change when it is handed to them.

Sandra Boynton:
There is a simple memory aid that you can use to determine whether it is the correct time to order chocolate dishes: any month whose name contains the letter A, E, or U is the proper time for chocolate.

Anne Bradstreet:
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

Harriet Braiker:
Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.

Dorothea Brande:
In matching your wits against yourself you take on the shrewdest and wiliest antagonist you can have, and consequently a victorious outcome in this duel of wits brings a great feeling of triumph.

Charlotte Bronte:
It is vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

Charlotte Bronte:
Look twice before you leap.

Charlotte Bronte:
Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow there, firm as weeds among rocks.

Anita Brookner:
Good women always think it is their fault when someone else is being offensive. Bad women never take the blame for anything.

Anita Brookner:
She was a handsome woman of forty-five and would remain so for many years.

J. Brown:
The third-date rule [that you need to have sex by the third date] treats sex like it's the down payment on a relationship.

J. Brown:
There are only so many ways you can say "hello".

J. Brown:
You have to do what you have to do.

Joyce Brothers:
A strong, positive self-image is the best possible preparation for success.

Joyce Brothers:
If Shakespeare had to go on an author tour to promote "Romeo and Juliet", he never would have written "Macbeth".

Joyce Brothers:
Listening, not imitation, may be the sincerest form of flattery.

Joyce Brothers:
Marriage is not just spiritual communion, it is also remembering to take out the trash.

Joyce Brothers:
No matter how love-sick a woman is, she shouldn't take the first pill that comes along.

Joyce Brothers:
The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top.

Helen Gurley Brown:
Beauty can't amuse you, but brainwork — reading, writing, thinking — can.

Helen Gurley Brown:
Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.

Rita Mae Brown:
If the world were a logical place, men would ride side-saddle.

Rita Mae Brown:
Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.

Rita Mae Brown:
The reward for conformity is everyone likes you but yourself.

Rita Mae Brown:
You are your work. Don't trade the stuff of your life, time, for nothing more than dollars. That's a rotten bargain.

Barbara Bush:
I married the first man I ever kissed. When I tell my children that they just about throw up.

Berta Buxton:
The eleventh commandment — Thou shalt not be found out — is the only one that is virtually impossible to keep these days.

Billie Burke:
Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are a cheese.

Carol Burnett:
Celebrity was a long time in coming; it will go away. Everything goes away.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
A woman's always younger than a man at equal years.

Fanny Burney:
I am ashamed of confessing that I have nothing to confess.

Fanny Burney:
Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There's no looking at a building after seeing Italy.

Fawn Brodie:
A man's memory is bound to be a distortion of his past in accordance with his present interests, and the most faithful autobiography is likely to mirror less what a man was than what he has become.

Joy Browne:
Adulthood was invented to repair the wounds of childhood.

Joy Browne:
Charity always feels better to the donor than to the recipient.

Joy Browne:
How do you take something and make it special? The answer is a lot of hard work and a great deal of imagination.

Joy Browne:
If we give up the notion that everybody's life but ours is perfect, we would be a lot happier. Nobody's life is perfect.

Joy Browne:
Infidelity, cheating is the easiest, stupidest, dumbest thing you can do.

Joy Browne:
It does no good to be right, if what you're craving is wrong.

Joy Browne:
It is a lot harder to put something back together than to keep it running.

Joy Browne:
It's not unusual for kids in their twenties to be mad at their parents.

Joy Browne:
Just trying to do something — just being there, showing up — is how we get braver. Self-esteem is about doing.

Joy Browne:
Most of sex is psychological — most of it is between our ears and not between our legs.

Joy Browne:
Opposites attract — and then aggravate.

Joy Browne:
Sex is meant to be, if not addictive, at least a very compelling behavior.

Joy Browne:
She's an idiot. She's looking at life through a selfish, lusty haze.

Joy Browne:
Take your hurt feelings and channel them into political activism.

Joy Browne:
The point of a date is to do something — a little unusual, a little special, a little sexy — that says loudly, "I'm going out of my way for you."

Joy Browne:
We've turned into a nation of mothers to our men. I think it's a dreadful mistake that doesn't benefit anybody.

Joy Browne:
When a guy says, "Don't make a fuss over my birthday," he means "Don't make a fuss over my birthday". When we say "Don't make a fuss over my birthday," we mean "Give me a surprise party. Do something lavish. Just don't tell everyone my age."

Joy Browne:
When in doubt, do the obvious.

Joy Browne:
You can certainly go to war about it, but to me it seems pointless.

Joy Browne:
You don't need a reason to divorce someone you can't stand.

Joy Browne:
You're much more interesting when you're online — all of us are.

Leslie Brueckner:
Don't do things that make you hurt.

Leslie Brueckner:
I can justify my bad behavior, but I still know I'm behaving badly.

Leslie Brueckner:
I don't always say what I am feeling, but I do say what I am thinking.

Leslie Brueckner:
I have to use my brain every day, or it turns against me.

Leslie Brueckner:
I may be a bitch, but I'm a bitch with a heart of gold.

Leslie Brueckner:
It's hard to be better than perfect.

Leslie Brueckner:
It's never a bad time to celebrate.

Leslie Brueckner:
Just because someone is dead doesn't mean you don't know who they are.

Leslie Brueckner:
What I don't have, I'm just not going to have.

Leslie Brueckner:
You don't know what you know until you talk about it.

Leslie Brueckner:
You got to do what you can do to make yourself the best you can be.

Pearl Buck:
A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love.

Pearl Buck:
The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.

Pearl Buck:
The secret of joy in work is contained in one word: excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

Pearl Buck:
Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Eileen Caddy:
Dwell not on the past. Use it to illustrate a point, then leave it behind. Nothing really matters except what you do now in this instant of time. From this moment onwards you can be an entirely different person, filled with love and understanding, ready with an outstretched hand, uplifted and positive in every thought and deed.

Peggy Cahn:
I believe the sign of maturity is accepting deferred gratification.

Ada Calhoun's mother:
The way to stay married is to not get divorced.

Julie Cameron:
Leap, and the net will appear.

Carrie Campbell:
Isn't it convenient that the crazy people we've dated break up with us, so we don't have to go to the bother of breaking up with them.

Mrs. Patrick Campbell:
It doesn't make any difference what you do in the bedroom as long as you don't do it in the street and frighten the horses.

Jan Carew:
Those whom the gods would destroy they first call "promising".

Mariah Carey:
A lot of people are singing about how screwed up the world is, and I don't think that everybody wants to hear about that all the time.

Ruth Carlisle:
If you treat a sick child like an adult, and a sick adult like a child, everything usually works out pretty well.

Liz Carpenter:
What a lot we lost when we stopped writing letters. You can't reread a phone call.

Lillian Carter:
(At age 85) Sure I'm for helping the elderly. I'm going to be old myself someday.

Mary Case:
No pressure, no diamonds.

Kathleen Casey:
Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

Mary Cassatt:
Painting cannot be taught: One doesn't need lessons. Museums are sufficient.

Geraldine Cassiani:
Necessity has a dog's face.

Judy Castrina:
A committee takes hours to put into minutes what can be done in seconds.

Willa Cather:
Where there is great love there are always miracles.

Kim Cattrall:
The earlier you learn to masturbate, the better your sex life will be.

Katherine Cebrian:
I don't even butter my bread. I consider that cooking.

Coco Chanel:
A woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future.

Coco Chanel:
All men are children. A woman who understands that understands everything.

Coco Chanel:
Dress shabbily and they remember the dress. Dress impeccably and they remember the woman.

Coco Chanel:
Elegance is when the inside is as beautiful as the outside.

Coco Chanel:
There is time for work, and time for love. That leaves no other time.

Coco Chanel:
To be irreplaceable, you must be different.

Marie Chapian:
Lack of discipline leads to frustration and self-loathing.

Cher:
A girl can wait for the right man to come along but, in the meantime, that doesn't mean she can't have a wonderful time with all the wrong ones.

Cher:
The trouble with some women is they get all excited about nothing — and then they marry him.

Julia Child:
If you have enough butter, anything is good.

Julia Child:
Noncooks think it's silly to invest two hours' work in two minutes' enjoyment; but if cooking is evanescent, so is the ballet.

Paula Christensen:
If I don't eat junk, I don't gain weight.

Paula Christensen:
It pays to know stuff about stuff.

Agatha Christie:
An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her.

Agatha Christie:
I don't think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness, to save oneself trouble.

Agatha Christie:
I've always believed in writing without a collaborator, because where two people are writing the same book, each believes he gets all the worry and only half the royalties.

Jenny Jerome Churchill:
We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand.

Esther Clark:
Give me one friend, just one, who meets the needs of all my varying moods.

Kim Clever:
It's not where you get to that's important, but what you do on the way to getting there.

Melanie Clark:
You can't put a price tag on love, but you can on all its accessories.

Deirdre Clemente:
Everyone thinks that they are middle class.

Claudette Colbert:
Why do grandparents and grandchildren get along so well? They have the same enemy: the mother.

Isabel Colegate:
It's not a bad idea to get in the habit of writing down one's thoughts. It saves one having to bother anyone with them.

Collette:
If I can't have too many truffles, I'll do without truffles.

Collette:
What a wonderful life I've had! I only wish I'd realized it sooner.

Collette:
Writing only leads to more writing.

Gail Collins:
Nobody could possibly brag that much about being smart unless he was really afraid he was pretty stupid.

Joan Collins:
Loneliness is the universal problem of rich people.

Joan Collins:
The secret of having a personal life is not answering too many questions about it.

Laurie Colwin:
Friendship is not possible between two women, one of whom is very well dressed.

Jan Compeau:
I don't know if I have ever used the word "hydrogen" in a sentence in my life.

Eliza Cook:
There's a magical tie to the land of our home, which the heart cannot break, though the footsteps may roam.

Joan Ganz Cooney:
There is a young and impresionable mind out there that is hungry for information. It has latched on to an electronic tube as its main source of nourishment.

Cynthia Copeland:
If you're going to draw on the wall, do it behind the couch.

Alicia Coro:
When we escaped from Cuba, all we could carry was our education.

Ann Coupe:
A nurse is the orchid of God's flowers.

Marcelene Cox:
A sparkling house is a fine thing if the children aren't robbed of their luster in keeping it that way.

Marcelene Cox:
A vacation frequently means that the family goes away for a rest, accompanied by mother, who sees that the others get it.

Marcelene Cox:
Eating without conversation is only stoking.

Marcelene Cox:
The quickest way to know a woman is to go shopping with her.

Marcelene Cox:
Weather means more when you have a garden. There's nothing like listening to a shower and thinking how it is soaking in around your green beans.

Marion Cozart:
It's easier to live with the problems you have than to make a major change and get new problems.

Tammy Cravit:
Death is a tangible reminder that life is too short to not do what you love.

Tammy Cravit:
I'm not going to complain. I knew where the ride was going when I bought my ticket.

Tammy Cravit:
We fear death because we want to know the end of the story. Life, however, is but a single chapter somewhere in the middle.

Tammy Cravit:
When you stop worrying, you free up energy that can be used more productively.

Tammy Cravit:
Worrying is all about the illusion of control. When you worry, you are expending energy, and it it feels like you are doing something.

Joan Crawford:
I never go out unless I look like Joan Crawford the movie star. If you want to see the girl next door, go next door.

Judith Crist:
All you'll get from strangers is surface pleasantry or indifference. Only someone who loves you will criticize you.

Amanda Cross:
Romance is the glamour which turns the dust of everyday life into a golden haze.

Beverly Crusher:
If there is nothing wrong with me, maybe there's something wrong with the universe.

Quinn Cummings:
Being a team player means working together with someone whose head you would like to push under the water and could put under the water but don't push under the water.

Quinn Cummings:
I hate travel. I have to hold the plane in the air by sheer force of will because I don't see how something that heavy can stay in the air. I suspect it's only our collective belief in it that's holding it up, and my terrible knowledge of this fact will cause the plane to plummet to Earth. Between digging my fingers into the armrest and not screaming, from the moment the engines start until I'm in the luggage area, airplane travel exhausts me.

Quinn Cummings:
My family crest consists of a chewed cuticle and a furrowed brow set on a field of beige questions marks.

Quinn Cummings:
One woman's catechism is another woman's long division with remainders.

Whitney Cummings:
When a guy writes a scene where a woman does a deviant sex act on camera, it's objectifying. But when a woman writes it, it's feminism.

Marie Curie:
Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood.

Marie Curie:
One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.

Hilary Cutler:
After a deep inner search, I realized that we are programmed and tend to follow patterns of our past experiences without realizing what we are doing.

Hilary Cutler:
If you can't beat 'em join 'em, and if you can't join 'em beat 'em.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Francoise d'Aubegne Maintenon:
There is an important difference between love and friendship. While the former delights in extremes and opposites, the latter demands equality.

Cass Daley:
Marriage is a matter of give and take, but so far I haven't been able to find anybody who'll take what I have to give.

Laura Daniell:
Theory is always trumped by the grace of insights delivered by people we trust.

Rita Davenport:
Money isn't everything — but it ranks right up there with oxygen.

Adelle Davis:
We are indeed much more than what we eat, but what we eat can nevertheless help us to be much more than what we are.

Bette Davis:
(About a starlet) She's the original good time that was had by all.

Bette Davis:
(On being told that her death was rumored) With the newspaper strike on, I wouldn't consider dying.

Bette Davis:
I'd marry again if I found a man who had fifteen million dollars, would sign over half to me, and guarantee that he'd be dead within a year.

Bette Davis:
Old age is no place for sissies.

Doris Day:
The really frightening thing about middle age is the knowledge that you'll grow out of it.

Dorothy Day:
I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions.

Lillian Day:
A lady is one who never shows her underwear unintentionally.

Simone De Beauvoir:
Buying is a profound pleasure.

Simone De Beauvoir:
One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius.

Diane de Poitiers:
The years that a woman subtracts from her age are not lost. They are added to other women's.

Marie de Rabutin-Chantal:
True friendship is never serene.

Virginie de Rieux:
Marriage is a lottery in which men stake their liberty and women their happiness.

Madame de Stael:
Love is the emblem of eternity; it confounds all notions of time; effaces all memory of begriming, all fear of an end.

Beth DeAraujo:
Men ought to be so grateful for women's guilt. I bet it gets them 50 percent of their fucks.

Tiffanie DeBartolo:
Anything less than extraordinary is a waste of your time.

Tiffanie DeBartolo:
It's easy to plant a seed and sprinkle it with water, but once the sun scorches the ground, and the earth soaks up all the moisture, you're left with nothing but a thirsty little flower trying desperately to make it out of the dirt.

Tiffanie DeBartolo:
The days will always be brighter because he existed. The nights will always be darker because he's gone.

Suzanne Delmerico:
We are all perfect except for our shortcomings.

Suzanne Delmerico:
When people bury other people, they should be damn certain that's where they want them to be.

Sylvie di Giusto:
People should look at my face or focus on my skills and talent, not look at my legs.

Sylvie di Giusto:
The more you deal with other people and their money, the less skin you should show.

Princess Diana:
Carry out a random act of kindness with no expectation of reward, safe in the knowledge that one day someone might do the same for you.

Princess Diana:
I don't go by the rule book. I lead from the heart, not the head.

Princess Diana:
I knew what my job was: it was to go out and meet the people and love them.

Angie Dickenson:
I dress for women and I undress for men.

Emily Dickinson:
Hope is a thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without words
And never stops at all.

Emily Dickinson:
They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.

Marlene Dietrich:
A man would prefer to come home to an unmade bed and a happy woman, than to a neatly made bed and an angry woman.

Marlene Dietrich:
I was raised almost entirely on turnips and potatoes, but I think that the turnips had more to do with the effect than the potatoes.

Marlene Dietrich:
In America, sex is an obsession; in other parts of the world it's a fact.

Marlene Dietrich:
It is the friends you can call at 4 am that matter.

Marlene Dietrich:
Most women set out to change a man, and when they have changed him they do not like him.

Marlene Dietrich:
Once a woman has forgiven a man, she must not reheat his sins for breakfast.

Annie Dillard:
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

Phyllis Diller:
Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your rest home.

Phyllis Diller:
Housework can't kill you, but why take a chance?

Phyllis Diller:
If it weren't for baseball, many kids wouldn't know what a millionaire looked like.

Phyllis Diller:
My mother-in-law had a pain beneath her left breast. Turned out to be a trick knee.

Phyllis Diller:
Never go to bed angry — stay up and fight.

Phyllis Diller:
Whatever you may look like, marry a man your own age — as your beauty fades, so will his eyesight.

Nance Dion:
When you are driving over 60 miles per hour, you're not driving — you're aiming.

Phyllis Diller:
Whatever you may look like, marry a man your own age — as your beauty fades, so will his eyesight.

Dorothy Dix (Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer):
Drying a widow's tears is one of the most dangerous occupations known to man.

Dorothy Dix:
Happiness is largely a matter of self-hypnotism. You can think yourself happy or you can think yourself miserable.

Dorothy Dix:
It is a queer thing, but imaginary troubles are harder to bear than actual ones.

Dorothy Dix:
Nobody wants to kiss when they are hungry.

Dorothy Dix:
The price of indulging yourself in your youth in the things you cannot afford is poverty and dependence in your old age.

Dorothy Dix:
There isn't a single human being who hasn't plenty to cry over, and the trick is to make the laughs outweigh the tears.

Dorothy Dix:
We are never happy until we learn to laugh at ourselves.

Dorothy Dix:
You never saw a very busy person who was unhappy.

Dorothy Dix:
You never saw a very busy person who was unhappy.

Dorothy Dix:
It is a queer thing, but imaginary troubles are harder to bear than actual ones.

Dorothea Dix:
In a world where there is so much to be done, I felt strongly impressed that there must be something for me to do.

Lore Dobler:
I never wanted to be a lawyer. I just wanted to buy a house.

Caitlin Doughty:
Death is the most natural thing in the world.

Elizabeth Drew:
Travel, instead of broadening the mind, often merely lengthens the conversation.

Lucille Duff-Gordon:
Put even the plainest woman into a beautiful dress and unconsciously she will try to live up to it.

Isadora Duncan:
It has taken me years of struggle, hard work and research to learn to make one simple gesture, and I know enough about the art of writing to realize that it would take as many years of concentrated effort to write one simple, beautiful sentence.

Isadora Duncan:
People don't live nowadays — they get about ten percent out of life.

Samantha Dunn:
Sometimes sweat is the best form of therapy.

Ariel Durant:
A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Amelia Earhart:
Adventure is worthwhile in itself.

Amelia Earhart:
Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace. The soul that knows it not, knows no release from little things; knows not the livid loneliness of fear.

Shannon Earls:
Our lives are changed by what we do, not by what others do to us.

Sydney Eilbacher:
We always know less than we think we do.

Elsa Einstein:
No, I don't understand my husband's theory of relativity, but I know my husband, and I know he can be trusted.

Britt Ekland:
I don't sleep with happily married men.

Debbie Ekola:
The more I do, the more I do.

Corey Elias:
Common courtesy goes a long way in a long-term relationship.

George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans):
Animals are such agreeable friends, they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.

George Eliot:
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to stay, abstains from giving us worthy evidence of the fact.

George Eliot:
Different taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.

George Eliot:
Excessive literary production is a social offense.

George Eliot:
It is a common enough case, that of a man being suddenly captivated by a woman nearly the opposite of his ideal.

George Eliot:
One must be poor to know the luxury of giving.

Queen Elizabeth II:
Grief is the price we pay for love.

Queen Elizabeth II:
It's all to do with the training. You can do a lot if you're properly trained.

Lucy Ellman:
Writing a novel without being asked seems a bit like having a baby when you have nowhere to live.

Nanette Emry:
Nanette's Law: High Emotions + High Expectations = Drama.

Nanette Emry:
It is important to ponder life beyond your own personal needs.

Nanette Emry:
The best quotes happen in simple conversation.

Elizabeth Englander:
You can't change what mean people do, but you can work on changing how you feel about it.

Eve Ensler:
Survivors weave our days making excuses and evolving theories for our perpetrators that steal our lives. In the end they did what they did because they could.

Nora Ephron:
If pregnancy were a book, they would cut the last two chapters.

Nora Ephron:
What my mother believed about cooking is that if you worked hard and prospered, someone else would do it for you.

Nora Ephron:
Whenever I get married I start buying "Gourmet Magazine".

Susan Ertz:
Millions long for immortality who don't know what to do on a rainy afternoon.

Marie Egner von Eschenbach:
We are so vain that we even care for the opinions of those we don't care for.

Eva A.:
Life is short. Enjoy it. Sing and dance. Be happy and laugh. That's the only thing that's important.

Eva A.:
When you are happy, people are attracted to you. When you are miserable, they don't want to be with you.

Edith Evans:
When a woman behaves like a man, why doesn't she behave like a nice man?

Mari Evans:
I have never been contained except I made the prison.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Rebecca Falls:
One of the most valuable things we can do to heal one another is listen to each other's stories.

Monika Faltiss:
Work is work, and everything else is everything else.

Farrah Fawcett:
God gave women intuition and femininity. Used properly, the combination easily jumbles the brain of any man I've ever met.

Dianne Feinstein:
Winning may not be everything, but losing has little to recommend it.

Dianne Feinstein:
You have to learn the rules of the game — and then you have to play better than anyone else.

Edna Ferber:
A woman can look both moral and exciting, if she also looks as if it was quite a struggle.

Edna Ferber:
Being an old maid is like death by drowning, a really delightful sensation after you cease to struggle.

Edna Ferber:
Big doesn't necessarily mean better. Sunflowers aren't better than violets.

Edna Ferber:
Writers should be read but not seen. Rarely are they a winsome sight.

Tina Fey:
Although good news gives me angina, I am impervious to bad news.

Tina Fey:
In show business, the definition of "crazy" is a woman who keeps talking even after no one wants to fuck her anymore.

Tina Fey:
Maybe we women gravitate toward comedy because it is a socially acceptable way to break rules and a release from our daily life.

Tina Fey:
My ability to turn good news into anxiety is rivaled only by my ability to turn anxiety into chin acne.

Tina Fey:
Saturday Night Live runs on a combustion engine of ambition and disappointment.

Tina Fey:
Sometimes, if you have a difficult decision to make, just stall until the answer presents itself.

Tina Fey:
The women I know in comedy are all good daughters, good citizens, mild-mannered college graduates.

Miriam "Ma" Ferguson:
(Governor of Texas: 1924-27, 1933-35) English was good enough for Jesus Christ and it's good enough for the children of Texas.

Geraldine Ferraro:
You don't have to have fought in a war to love peace.

Linda Festa:
The most important thing in a relationship between a man and a woman is that one of them must be good at taking orders.

Dale Figtree:
No one's life is without suffering. But when we are suffering, what we choose to do with our mind can either free us or torment us.

Dale Figtree:
Working with the mind takes a lot of discipline, and it's usually hard to get started.

Carrie Fisher:
I don't want life to imitate art. I want life to be art.

Carrie Fisher:
Instant gratification takes too long.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher:
One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it's such a nice change from being young.

Ella Fitzgerald:
Just don't give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong.

Zelda Fitzgerald:
Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.

Margaret Fitzpatrick:
I learned the value of hard work by working hard.

Patty Flack:
If our politicians were better at pretending to get along, there wouldn't be any war.

Patty Flack:
Sometimes too many choices can make matters worse.

Patty Flack:
Sometimes you have to take things on faith, even if you don't have any faith.

Patty Flack:
Things don't work well if you don't press the right buttons.

Mary Parker Follet:
No one has a greater asset for his business than a man's pride in his work.

Jane Fonda:
My husband said he wanted to have a relationship with a redhead, so I dyed my hair.

Jane Fonda:
Telling lies and showing off to get attention are mistakes I made that I don't want my kids to make.

Jane Fonda:
Women are not forgiven for ageing. Robert Redford's lines of distinction are my old-age wrinkles.

Margot Fonteyn:
Take your work seriously, but never yourself.

Kelly Fordyce:
Language is a wonderful thing. It can be used to express thoughts, to conceal thoughts, but more often, to replace thinking.

Katherine Francke:
As perfume to the flower, so is kindness to speech.

Anne Frank:
Don't think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that still remains. In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.

Anne Frank:
Laziness may appear attractive, but work gives satisfaction.

Anne Frank:
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God.

Anne Frank:
Who would ever think that so much went on in the soul of a young girl?

Anne Frank:
Why do grown-ups quarrel so easily?

Valerie Frankel:
Loving a thing is shallow, only if you don't deeply appreciate its emotional value.

E'Lyse Friendly:
I always go to bed smarter than I was when I woke up in the morning.

Anna Freud:
Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.

Betty Friedan:
It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself.

Betty Friedan:
Man is not the enemy here, but the fellow victim. The real enemy is women's denigration of themselves.

Betty Friedan:
Strange new problems are being reported in the growing generations of children whose mothers were always there, driving them around, helping them with their homework: an inability to endure pain or discipline, or pursue any self-sustained goal of any sort — a devastating boredom with life.

Betty Friedan:
The feminine mystique has succeeded in burying alive millions of American women.

Dorothy Fuldheim:
This is a youth-oriented society, and the joke is on them because youth is a disease from which we all recover.

Margaret Fuller:
If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Zsa Zsa Gabor:
A girl must marry for love and keep on marrying until she finds it.

Zsa Zsa Gabor:
A man is incomplete until he is married. After that, he is finished.

Zsa Zsa Gabor:
How many husbands have I had? You mean apart from my own?

Zsa Zsa Gabor:
Husbands are like fires. They go out when unattended.

Zsa Zsa Gabor:
I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house.

Zsa Zsa Gabor:
I don't remember anybody's name. How do you think the "dahling" thing got started?

Zsa Zsa Gabor:
The women's movement hasn't changed my sex life. It wouldn't dare.

Indira Gandhi:
My grandfather once told me that there were two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group. There was much less competition.

Indira Gandhi:
There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten.

Indira Gandhi:
You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

Judy Garland
Always be a first rate version of yourself instead of a second rate version of somebody else.

Jennifer Garstang:
The fact that I'm a weird emotional mess of a person won't stop people from buying my art.

Marlene Garstang:
I've really been working to be relaxed.

Marlene Garstang:
Life is good. I just didn't understand what was going on.

Marlene Garstang:
Thank goodness! It was all just a bad dream! I'm still 18!

Marlene Garstang:
The best parts of a wedding are the things that go wrong.

Rachel Garstang:
It's amazing how much homework you get done when you don't have any friends.

Elizabeth Gaskell:
A man is so in the way in the house.

Elizabeth Gaskell:
I'll not listen to reason. Reason always means what someone else has got to say.

Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa):
One of the great gifts that you can give people is to cook for them.

M Gastil-Buhl:
Hey, a girl can dream.

Martha Gellman:
The only aspect of our travels that is interesting to others is disaster.

Phyllis George:
The most popular labor saving device is still money.

Estelle Getty:
If love means never having to say you're sorry, then marriage means always having to say everything twice.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman:
In New York City, everyone is an exile, none more so than the Americans.

Elizabeth Gilbert:
Death, or the prospect of death, has a way of clearing away everything that is not real.

Vivienne Gilbert:
We change, we deteriorate, we die. We can only be grateful for what we have enjoyed and try to enjoy every continuing moment. There is absolutely no other alternative.

Carloyn Givens:
"Bad" isn't always bad.

Audrey Giorgi:
Once in a while, you have to take a break and visit yourself.

Susan Glasee:
I can't think of any sorrow in the world that a hot bath wouldn't help just a little bit.

Gail Godwin:
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theatre.

Gail Godwin:
One is taught by experience to put a premium on those few people who can appreciate you for what you are.

Dina Goebel:
Women are looking for alternate ways to express themselves and satisfy their creative needs, but often don't know where to begin.

Michelle Goldberg:
As history shows, childless women in America eventually provoke hysteria.

Nathalie Gordon:
Everyone hates advertising till they've lost their dog.

Nathalie Gordon:
Just asked my mum what she wants for Mother's Day. She replied with, "A firm ass".

Melissa Gough:
Your mind: it's a frightening place to live.

Dory Grade:
Art is the tangible evidence of the human spirit.

Sheila Graham:
Food is the most primitive form of comfort.

Lee Grant:
I've been married to one Marxist and one Fascist, and neither one would take the garbage out.

Toni Grant:
No man can be a hero all of the time, and certainly every man can't be a hero in the world. But every man can be a hero to his woman. And part of our job as women is to enable men.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
[from a reader, FD] Any time you get a group of people who feel strongly about something, you'll get a few outliers who are way past the norm for that group. And if those people get into positions of power — or even just visibility — it can damage the entire group's reputation.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
Be clear in your head about what is and isn't your business. Sometimes things are irritating and offensive, but still not necessarily ours to get involved in.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
[from a reader, Sibley] Every relationship I've had, I didn't realize until after the fact that the first date was a date. Every time.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
For most people, annoying coworkers are a fact of life.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
For most people, work is not a source of pleasure and fulfillment. It's a source of income.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
Flip-flops are the motorcycle of shoes, in that there's zero protection if you have an accident.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
I've wished for years that I could have a redo, because there's a lot I would do differently if I had the chance.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
[from a reader]Ignorance is bliss... until it's not.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
Leaving a job is a normal part of having a job.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
Part of working in an office effectively is recognizing that everyone is not the same, and not taking it personally.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
People are often oblivious to how the noises they're making are affecting other people.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
People aren't entitled to information you didn't intend to share with them just because they're pushy.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
Recognize that part of your job is to get along with your coworkers.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
Someone who abuses their power and violates boundaries forfeits any right to expect complete transparency.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
[from a reader, Kristi] Sometimes just a few kind words of encouragement or appreciation are all that is needed.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
Two lessons I've learned: (1) Don't get so eager that you show your hand too early in the process, (2) Life is funny, so you might as well have a sense of humor.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
"What can we do differently?" is polite code for "You need to do something differently." It works in all kinds of situations. Try it.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
When someone annoys you, it's easy for everything about them to become annoying.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
You can handle five minutes of discomfort.

Alison Green (Ask a Manager):
You cannot go through life ensuring that all interactions with other humans are free of discomfort.

Celia Green:
The way to do research is to attack the facts at the point of greatest astonishment.

Edith Starett Green:
I've always argued that it is just as desirable, just as possible, to have philosopher plumbers as philosopher kings.

Germaine Greer:
There is no such thing as security. There never has been. Probably the only place where a man can feel really secure is in a maximum security prison, except for the imminent threat of release.

Lisa Grossman:
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

Maria Guido:
I wonder how much of the blueprint of my life was drawn by me, and how much was sketched by experiences I had when I was way too young to be the architect of my own destiny.

Cathy Guisewite:
Mothers, food, love, and career — the four major guilt groups.

Karen Gumtow:
A relationship evolves and develops. It's not like, "Just add water and replace your ex-boyfriend."

Karen Gumtow:
Anyone you're living with is going to annoy you now and then.

Karen Gumtow:
Anything you can find on Google, I can put peanut butter on.

Karen Gumtow:
Bad times bring out the best in good people and the worst in bad people.

Karen Gumtow:
Dating involves a certain amount of frustration — so just suck it up.

Karen Gumtow:
I can't be intimate with someone I'm not intimate with.

Karen Gumtow:
I don't make my plans on "what-ifs". I plan on stuff I can control.

Karen Gumtow:
I don't need someone like me. One of me is enough.

Karen Gumtow:
I find the truth makes me laugh even harder.

Karen Gumtow:
I have a problem with musicals. Everybody is singing and dancing, and I just want them to get on with the story.

Karen Gumtow:
I know what I want, and I know what I need. And whether or not anyone else is on board with that doesn't matter, because I know what I feel.

Karen Gumtow:
I talk on the phone, therefore I exist.

Karen Gumtow:
If a stranger asks you for an unusual favor — especially one they could be doing for themselves — stay away from it. It's bad news.

Karen Gumtow:
If I'm going to end up single, I'd rather look hot than fat.

Karen Gumtow:
If you can't solve problems, you won't be able to have a long-term relationship.

Karen Gumtow:
If you ever want to live with somebody, you're going to have to give up the way you do things now.

Karen Gumtow:
If you have to grab, it's because the answer is no.

Karen Gumtow:
If you want someone to take care of you, get married. As long as you live separately, you fix your own shit.

Karen Gumtow:
If you're going to lie, keep lying. Don't recant.

Karen Gumtow:
If you're going to ski, you need to ski bravely.

Karen Gumtow:
In the end, it's all about what you put in your mouth.

Karen Gumtow:
It's a lot easier to make money than it is to make a relationship work.

Karen Gumtow:
It's not good for women to pin their future on a relationship with a man: it so Fifties.

Karen Gumtow:
"Safe" is not really my lifestyle.

Karen Gumtow:
The point of frustration is to fight against things that aren't changing.

Karen Gumtow:
There is no relationship so perfect that you won't have to solve problems.

Karen Gumtow:
We tend to pretend that we are not animals with animal needs.

Karen Gumtow:
We've changed for the worse all kinds of things in our life, because the original was inconvenient.

Karen Gumtow:
Whatever is guaranteed is going to be ridiculously expensive.

Karen Gumtow:
You cannot have re-invention without casualties.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Marilyn Hahn:
Children are a life sentence.

Marilyn Hahn:
Even smart people act stupid at times.

Marilyn Hahn:
Eventually, everyone loses everybody (and if you die first, you lose everybody all at once).

Marilyn Hahn:
I don't know what gets into people. They have it good and they make it bad.

Marilyn Hahn:
I hate losing a sneeze.

Marilyn Hahn:
I know everything. (I don't know why. I just do.)

Marilyn Hahn:
If you want good things to happen to you: listen, think, and practice self-control.

Marilyn Hahn:
Nothing is worth making yourself sick over.

Marilyn Hahn:
Something's wrong with everything.

Marilyn Hahn:
You can't be ordinary if you're a genius, because there are very few ordinary geniuses.

Marilyn Hahn:
You can't have good weather and a good relationship.

Marilyn Hahn:
When is the best time of your life? In between semesters in high school.

Melissa Hahn:
[About a popular TV psychologist] I don't think he's full of beans — I think he's full of Hollywood.
Melissa Hahn:
If you can dance together, you can get through anything together.

Melissa Hahn:
It's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice.

Melissa Hahn:
You are what you eat (minus what you excrete).

Melissa Hahn:
You can only hate someone as much as you love them.

Donna Haines:
Right now, things are so frantic, every minute is filled with activities or planning activities and everything else that goes in between: I'd love to be bored.

Dianne Hales:
Put duties aside at least an hour before bed, and perform soothing, quiet activities that will help you relax.

Grace Hansen:
Don't be afraid your life will end; be afraid that it will never begin.

Nicole Hardy / Nicole Brodeur:
There are worse things than not being married and being on your own. / There is freedom to be had. Self-awareness. Solitude.

Jean Harfenist:
I'm not a multitasker — I confess.

Mata Hari:
The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word.

Corra Harris:
The bravest thing you can do when you are not brave is to profess courage and act accordingly.

Nikki Harris:
Van Gogh became a painter because he had no ear for music.

Barbara Harrison:
I refuse to believe that trading recipes is silly. Tunafish casserole is at least as real as corporate stock.

Tori Harrison:
Rules are for people who don't know how to get around them.

Grace Hartigan:
I don't mind being miserable as long as I'm painting well.

Caryl Haskins:
The person who is too old to learn was probably always too old to learn.

Katharine Hathaway:
If you realize too acutely how valuable time it, you are too paralyzed to do anything.

Katherine Hathaway:
There is nothing better than the encouragement of a good friend.

Jacquetta Hawkes:
The only inequalities that matter begin in the mind. It is not income levels but differences in mental equipment that keep people apart and breed feelings of inferiority.

Carolyn Hax:
A "wonderful man" deserves someone grateful to know him, not impatient for him to improve.

Carolyn Hax:
A miserable marriage has been known to make the sunniest people turn cranky.

Carolyn Hax:
Absence does make the heart grow fonder, except when it doesn't.

Carolyn Hax:
Boyfriends are supposed to be an emotional burden.

Carolyn Hax:
Butting in is useful in inverse proportion to the amount of butting in you do.

Carolyn Hax:
Conflict on a regular basis is not an inevitable byproduct of combining two lives.

Carolyn Hax:
Consider screening your friends for sensitivity to others and good manners.

Carolyn Hax:
Differences heighten attraction, but they chip away slowly at love.

Carolyn Hax:
Fix what you can; grow beyond the rest.

Carolyn Hax:
Forgetting we're all just animals doesn't mean we stop acting like them.

Carolyn Hax:
Happiness in a relationship is inversely proportional to the number of self-serving pronouncements your partner generates.

Carolyn Hax:
Holidays are just days, whenever you need them to be.

Carolyn Hax:
I'm skeptical of the whole idea of there being one thing a person could have done in the past to prevent an unhappy present. Your decisions back then were the result of countless factors.

Carolyn Hax:
[from a reader's first grade teacher] If you stop running, the boys will stop chasing you. They don't want to catch you, they want to make you run away.

Carolyn Hax:
If you are a person of character, you will prioritize character when it's time to choose a mate. The rest is just fluff, stuffing and page views.

Carolyn Hax:
It is an important skill to be able to forgive someone and get over it, when he or she treats something lightly, when you really really need them not to.

Carolyn Hax:
It's in our nature to create a narrative to explain our lives and organize our memories — and when that narrative is based on a misconception, it's really easy to carry on for years without ever noticing the mistake. We even subtly adjust what we see to fit that faulty-yet-comfortably-familiar narrative, which cements it even further. Hard as it is, though, going back to challenge old assumptions is an important and rewarding process.

Carolyn Hax:
[from a reader] Love isn't a pie that only has so many slices.

Carolyn Hax:
No one is perfect, but it doesn't mean that one's family, friends, or even strangers have to put up with the worst of our imperfections.

Carolyn Hax:
People don't do what they should. They do what they do.

Carolyn Hax:
People who work hard to get along often wear each other down.

Carolyn Hax:
Please sort your concerns about your marriage from your old childhood wounds. Your emotions might not be able to tell the difference, but don't let your mind conflate the two.

Carolyn Hax:
Reality and the word "should" have a relationship that's touch-and-go at best.

Carolyn Hax:
Sometimes we're right, but not as often as we think we are.

Carolyn Hax:
Talking yourself into what you suspect is a bad idea is generally a bad idea.

Carolyn Hax:
The best approach [to being supportive of someone] is to be present, transparent, patient, and nonjudgmental.

Carolyn Hax:
The bitter will be punished because their lives are already punishment. No need for others to get their hands dirty.

Carolyn Hax:
There are very, very few people who have zero redeeming qualities.

Carolyn Hax:
[from a reader] When you feel like opening your mouth to criticize your spouse, first ask yourself "Will this matter in five years?"

Salma Hayek:
I'd rather have a hard road into excellence than an easy road to mediocrity.

Helen Hayes:
Only the poet can look beyond the detail and see the whole picture.

Ira Hayes:
No one ever complains about a speech being too short.

Rita Hayworth:
(who played a provocative woman in the movie "Gilda")
Men go to bed with Gilda, but wake up with me.
(Compare to Ingrid Bergman)

Jane Heard:
A well adjusted person is one who makes the same mistake twice without getting nervous.

Lydia Hearn:
Actually, I don't really think I'm vain; I'm just realistic.

Lydia Hearn:
As long as I can fool myself, that's the only person I need to fool.

Lydia Hearn:
Love involves respect. It doesn't involve awe.

Lydia Hearn:
Settling is not the same as setting down.

Amy Heckerling:
Babies don't need fathers, but mothers do. Someone who is taking care of a baby needs to be taken care of.

Tippi Hedren:
I'd love to have a man in my life and to go on dates but I'll never marry again. I like living alone. I'm vain and I'm also selfish. Who would want that in a woman?

Tippi Hedren:
My marriages were all good — until they weren't.

Tippi Hedren:
My third husband Luis Barrenechea was everything I wanted in a man, except that he was an alcoholic and that was unbearable.

Coleen Hefley:
A treat is not a treat unless it's a treat.

Carolyn Heilbrun:
Ideas move fast when their time comes.

Cynthia Heimel:
There is a microscopically thin line between being brilliantly creative and acting like the most gigantic idiot on Earth.

Lillian Hellman:
Cynicism is an unpleasant way of telling the truth.

Lillian Hellman:
Her face is unclouded by thought.

Lillian Hellman:
I cannot and will not cut my conscience to fit this year's fashions.

Lillian Hellman:
I like people who refuse to speak until they are ready to speak.

Lillian Hellman:
It is a mark of many famous people that they cannot part with their finest hour.

Lillian Hellman:
It it not good to see people who have been pretending strength all their lives lose it even for a minute.

Lillian Hellman:
It's an indulgence to sit in a room and discuss your beliefs as if they were a juicy piece of gossip.

Lillian Hellman:
My father was often angry when I was most like him.

Lillian Hellman:
People change and forget to tell each other.

Madeline Hemmings:
With increased opportunity comes increased stress. The stress comes from multiple conflicting demands and very little in the way of role models.

Audrey Hepburn:
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed. Never throw out anyone.

Katharine Hepburn:
Acting is the most minor of gifts. After all, Shirley Temple could do it when she was four.

Katharine Hepburn:
Afraid of death? Not at all. Be a great relief. Then I wouldn't have to talk to you.

Katharine Hepburn:
Cold sober, I find myself absolutely fascinating.

Katharine Hepburn:
I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.

Katharine Hepburn:
I find a woman's point of view much grander and finer than a man's.

Katharine Hepburn:
I never realized until lately that women were supposed to be the inferior sex.

Katharine Hepburn:
I often wonder whether men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.

Katharine Hepburn:
I think most of the people involved in any art always secretly wonder whether they are really there because they're good or because they're lucky.

Katharine Hepburn:
I welcome death. In death there are no interviews.

Katharine Hepburn:
If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.

Katharine Hepburn:
If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.

Katharine Hepburn:
If you want to sacrifice the admiration of many men for the criticism of one, go ahead, get married.

Katharine Hepburn:
I'm an atheist, and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for each other.

Katharine Hepburn:
Life is hard — after all, it kills you.

Katharine Hepburn:
Not everyone is lucky enough to understand how delicious it is to suffer.

Katharine Hepburn:
Only when a woman decides not to have children, can a woman live like a man. That's what I've done.

Katharine Hepburn:
Plain women know more about men than do beautiful women.

Katharine Hepburn:
Someone asked someone who was about my age: "How are you?" The answer was, "Fine. If you don't ask for details."

Katharine Hepburn:
The lack of work destroys people.

Katharine Hepburn:
Wouldn't it be great if people could get to live suddenly as often as they die suddenly?

Lois Herrick:
Almost every good idea has something in it that could make it go wrong.

Lois Herrick:
If you start taking care of yourself, you will, eventually, start feeling better.

Kathy L.
My strategy is to not plan anything. That way, I'm not disappointed when I don't get anything done.

Xaviera Hollander:
In America you can get away with murder, but not with sex.

Xaviera Hollander:
You just can't be good in bed anymore. You have to be good at the keyboard too.

Kate Holmquist:
When we are in love, we tend to think all the best things about our beloved and may fool ourselves into thinking we can persuade them into becoming who we secretly want them to be.

Julie Holz:
The only way to not break a friendship is to not drop it.

Bell Hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins):
The path to greater economic self-sufficiency will necessarily lead to alternative lifestyles which will run counter to the image of the good life presented to us by white supremacist capitalist patriarchal mass media.

Grace Hopper:
A ship in port is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.

Grace Hopper:
One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions.

Grace Hopper:
You don't manage people, you manage things. You lead people.

Harriet Van Horne:
Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.

Lena Horne:
It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.

Harriet Van Horne.:
There are days when any electrical appliance in the house, including the vacuum cleaner, offers more entertainment than the TV set.

Karen Horney:
Fortunately, psychoanalysis is not the only way to resolve inner conflicts. Life itself remains a very effective therapist.

Gittel Hudnick:
Whoever said money can't buy happiness didn't know where to shop.

Arianna Huffington:
By any sane definition of success, if you wake up in a pool of blood and nobody has shot you, you are not successful.

Arianna Huffington:
Our current obsession with creativity is the result of our continued striving for immortality in an era when most people no longer believe in an afterlife.

Shirley Hufstedler:
Security is not the meaning of my life. Great opportunities are worth the risk.

Rhetta Hughes:
There are two kinds of directors in the theater. Those who think they are God, and those who are certain of it.

Diana Hunt:
Goals are dreams with deadlines.

Lucretia Hunter:
Not only have women been successful in entering fields in which men are supposed to have a more natural aptitude, but they have created entirely new businesses.

Pearl Strachan Hurd:
Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Cheryl Imp:
Life is too short to have patience.

Molly Ivins:
I believe in practicing prudence at least once every two or three years.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Susan Jacoby:
Real-life discussions involve a great many bores and boors who have never learned that the art of conversation demands listening as well as talking.

Susan Jacoby:
At its heart, all intellectual and emotional life is a conversation, and the conversation begins at birth.

Jane Jacobs:
Almost nobody travels willingly from sameness to sameness and repetition to repetition, even if the physical effort required is trivial.

Hope Jahren:
Being paid to wonder seems like a heavy responsibility at times.

Hope Jahren:
Every monkey is some monkey's monkey.

Hope Jahren:
Female professors and departmental secretaries are the natural enemies of the academic world.

Hope Jahren:
I am sick to death of this wound that will not close; of how my babyish heart mistakes any simple kindness from a woman for a breadcrumb trail leading to the soft love of a mother or the fond approval of a grandmother.

Hope Jahren:
I go into the bathroom and I vomit and shake, and afterward I don't recognize the person in the mirror. She looks so sad and tired and greasy that I feel sorry for her, even before I fully understand that she is me.

Hope Jahren:
[while pregnant] I see more evidence of my powerlessness, even over things small and meaningless, and I sit down, put my head in my hands, and sob onto my desk... I cry because I can see only what I am losing and not what I will gain... I grieve long and hard for the part of my life that is over now that this baby has come... I try not to wonder when will be the next time that I lose my mind... I am so sad that I cannot cry, and so empty I cannot pray.

Hope Jahren:
In Georgia, when someone walks up to you wearing overalls with no shirt underneath, it is unlikely that something good is about to happen.

Hope Jahren:
It confused me when I moved out of state and met people who effortlessly gave each other the simple warmth and casual affection I had craved for so long.

Hope Jahren:
It takes a long time to turn into what you're supposed to be.

Hope Jahren:
It wasn't until I was 17 and moved away to college that I discovered that the world is mostly populated by strangers.

Hope Jahren:
[plants] Production of the new generation comes at a significant cost to the parent. [humans] Being pregnant is by far the hardest thing I have ever done.

Hope Jahren:
Remaining stationary and naked outside in the below-freezing weather for three months is a death sentence for almost every living anything on Earth, except for the many species of trees that have been doing it for a hundred million years.

Hope Jahren:
The best way to prevent people from complaining about food while camping is to force each one of them to take responsibility for one night of cooking.

Hope Jahren:
[after giving birth] The next days are like a long, happy dream in which I don't have to do anything but lie in bed and periodically testify that I am not psychotic.

Hope Jahren:
The vast emotional distance between the individual members of a Scandinavian family are forged early and reinforced daily. Can you imagine growing up in a culture where you can never ask anyone anything about themselves?

Hope Jahren:
There's a place somewhere where I am part of the in‑group.

Hope Jahren:
[our customary bedtime mantra] This house is full of people who love you.

Hope Jahren:
When I looked at my mother, it was difficult for me to believe that the well-spoken and smartly dressed woman before me could have ever been a dirty, hungry, and scared child.

Hope Jahren:
When you grow up around people who don't speak very much, what they do say to you is indelible.

Hope Jahren:
When your world is changing rapidly, it is important to have identified the one thing that you can always count on.

Hope Jahren:
Working in the hospital teaches you that there are only two kinds of people in the world: the sick and the not sick. If you are not sick, shut up and help.

Alice James:
One has a greater sense of of intellectual degradation after an interview with a doctor than from any human experience.

Elizabeth Janeway:
Power is the ability not to have to please.

Marion Javits:
I am his mistress. His work is his wife.

Elizabeth Jenkins:
The woman whose behavior indicates that she will make a scene if she is told the truth asks to be deceived.

Sarah Orne Jewett:
Tact is, after, all a kind of mind reading.

Joyce Jillson:
There are times not to flirt: when you're sick, when you're with children, and when you're on the witness stand.

Dede Johnson:
I see no reason why any woman should wear unbecoming clothes.

Lady Bird Johnson:
The way you overcome shyness is to become so wrapped up in something you forget to be afraid.

Jo:
You never know which tree you'll have to climb in order to reach the top.

Effie Jones:
Failing to plan is planning to fail.

Gloria Jones:
How can I ever miss you when you never go away?

Gloria Jones:
I don't choose stay in the state of sadness, any more than I would choose to stay in a room with the smoke alarm going off.

Gloria Jones:
I know how to find things.

Gloria Jones:
If you're only happy when the sun is out, you're missing half of your life.

Gloria Jones:
You can't feel happy unless you feel free.

Erica Jong:
Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.

Erica Jong:
Blaming women is always in fashion.

Erica Jong:
Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow talent to the dark place where it leads.

Erica Jong:
You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.

Erica Jong:
Women who bear children before they establish serious habits of work, may never establish them at all.

Barbara Jordan:
Do not call for black power or green power. Call for brain power.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Becky Griffith Kaag:
Writers can't bluff their way through ignorance.

Alice Kahn:
"For a list of all the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, please press 3."

Lady Kasluck:
The worst thing about work in the house or home is that whatever you do is destroyed, laid waste or eaten within twenty four hours.

Kate [a Dear Wendy reader]:
You come to identify yourself according to your most recent experience.

Margo Kaufman:
The only thing worse than a man you can't control is a man you can.

Marina Keegan:
We don't have a word for the opposite of loneliness but if we did, I could say that's what I want in life.

Helen Keller:
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

Helen Keller:
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature.

Helen Keller:
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Helen Keller:
Science may have found a cure for most evils, but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all: the apathy of human beings.

Helen Keller:
The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.

Helen Keller:
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

Lauré Kendrick:
Life is much more fearful than death.

Lauré Kendrick:
An argument for optimism: When you look for good things in life, you are much more likely to find them.

Lauré Kendrick:
Anticipation is 90 percent of life's pleasure or pain. This means that, if you are optimistic, you will be happy 90 percent of the time.

Lauré Kendrick:
Children should be raised to understand death as a natural part of life, and not to think of it as the end of all things.

Lauré Kendrick:
Happiness is a state of mind in which you are glad you are alive.

Lauré Kendrick:
Hormones don't cause feelings, they just exaggerate them.

Lauré Kendrick:
I don't want my husband to be just like me. I don't want to be married to me.

Lauré Kendrick:
I must admit — romance has been easy for me.

Lauré Kendrick:
Making mistakes is the most efficient form of learning.

Lauré Kendrick:
Only real cool people can admit mistakes.

Lauré Kendrick:
Women want understanding and compassion. Men want sympathy and solutions. Women belong to the "UC" club, men belong to the "SS" club. The more you accept that, the easier life becomes.

Florynce Kennedy:
Don't agonize. Organize.

Terry Keramaris:
I firmly believe in the power of carbohydrates.

Terry Keramaris:
People shouldn't have sex with selfish people.

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy:
I've had an exciting time; I married for love and got a little money along with it.

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy:
Life isn't a matter of milestones but of moments.

Sister Elizabeth Kenny:
It's better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.

Corita Kent:
Love the moment and the energy of that moment will spread beyond all boundaries.

Jean Kerr:
I make mistakes; I'll be the second to admit it.

Jean Kerr:
I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you want —an adorable pancreas?

Jean Kerr:
Man is the only animal that learns by being hypocritical. He pretends to be polite and then, eventually, he becomes polite.

Jean Kerr:
Marrying a man is like buying something you've been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You may love it when you get it home, but it doesn't always go with everything else in the house.

Jean Kerr:
One of the most difficult things to contend with in a hospital is that assumption on the part of the staff that because you have lost your gall bladder you have also lost your mind.

Jean Kerr:
The real menace in dealing with a five-year-old is that in no time at all you begin to sound like a five-year-old.

Billie Jean King:
Be bold. If you're going to make an error, make a doozey, and don't be afraid to hit the ball.

Coretta Scott King:
Segregation was wrong when it was forced by white people, and I believe it is still wrong when it is requested by black people.

Florence King:
During the feminist seventies men were caught between a rock and a hard-on; in the fathering eighties they are caught between good hugs and bad hugs.

Lisa Kirk:
A gossip is someone who talks to you about others, a bore is someone who talks to you about himself, and a brilliant conversationalist is one who talks to you about yourself.

Jeane Kirkpatrick:
History is a better guide than good intentions.

Joan Kiser:
The sins of the fathers are often visited upon the sons-in-law.

Denise Klahn:
Fashion is something that goes in one year and out the other.

Joan Klempner:
To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep.

Hildegard Knef:
Success and failure are greatly overrated, but failure gives you a whole lot more to talk about.

Linda Knight:
Even someone who is not right for you can break your heart.

Linda Knight:
Every thin person I know eats breakfast.

Linda Knight:
Girls are difficult to raise. Boys are easier. True, boys can be rambunctious, but they're simple and they don't have periods.

Linda Knight:
I feel better when I eat right.

Linda Knight:
If you are going to spend the rest of your life with someone, you had better not have a lot of negative things to say about him.

Linda Knight:
If you ask too much from any one person, they're not going to be able to give you what you want and you're going to be disappointed.

Linda Knight:
If you let people live their lives the way they want, rather than nagging them, they'll want to be with you.

Linda Knight:
It is essential for your well-being to have someone you love, who loves you.

Linda Knight:
It's important to watch what you put in your mind.

Linda Knight:
Knowledge is a good thing.

Linda Knight:
Nice guys will wait.

Linda Knight:
There is a special bond that exists only between a man and a woman: a bond that cannot be replaced by anything else, not by children, not by family, not by friends.

Linda Knight:
You can get so much more with an "us", than you can with a "me".

Judith M. Knowlton:
I discovered I always have choices, and sometimes it's only a choice of attitude.

Lisa Kogan:
Forget about the mind. The clitoris is a terrible thing to waste.

Gayle Kolidas:
Listen to your Mom, she's always on your side!

Gayle Kolidas:
Young people struggle for years to break free of their mother's voice in their heads.

Joan Konner:
Procrastination gives you something to look forward to.

Krystal Ann Kraus:
If you want a high performance woman, I can go from zero to bitch in less than 2.1 seconds.

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross:
There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden, or even your bathtub.

Maggie Kuhn:
The ultimate indignity is to be given a bedpan by a stranger who calls you by your first name.

Madeleine May Kunin:
Boys will be boys, but girls must be goddesses.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Cathy Ladman:
Jews can't serve on juries because they insist they're guilty.

Cathy Ladman:
My parents only had one argument in forty-five years: it lasted forty-three years.

Anne Lamott:
A hundred years from now? All new people.

Mary Lake:
When you change your thoughts, you not only change your brain chemicals, you change your emotions and your reactions to life.

Elna Lanchester:
She looked as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth— or anywhere else.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
All married couples should learn the art of battle as they should learn the art of making love. Good battle is objective and honest, never vicious or cruel. Good battle is healthy and constructive, and brings to a marriage the principle of equal partnership.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
At every party there are two kinds of people — those who want to go home and those who don't. The trouble is, they are usually married to each other.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
I made up my mind when I was 15 years old that I would never smoke or drink. I have kept that pledge to myself, and it was one of the smartest decisions I ever made.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
If a man is fed well at home, he will not be inclined to go to restaurants.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
If you marry a man who cheats on his wife, you'll be married to a man who cheats on his wife.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
It is better to be alone than to wish you were.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
My personal recipe for success is: Do what you love and don't look at the clock.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
No one can take advantage of you without your permission.
(Compare to Eleanor Roosevelt)

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
Nobody ever drowned in his own sweat.
(Compare to Sandrine Rocher-Krul)

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don't recognize them.
(Compare to Sandrine Rocher-Krul)

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
People have one year after the wedding to send a gift. Thank-you notes must be written immediately. If you don't receive an acknowledgment within three months, phone and ask if it was received. If the bride and groom are embarrassed, fine. They deserve to be.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
Some men have no idea how to romance a woman. However, women who teach their husbands what they like will be well-rewarded.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
Strong role models and unconditional love can heal even the most emotionally impoverished person, and that goes for adults as well as youngsters.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
The minute more than two people know a secret, it is no longer a secret.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
The unvarnished truth is always better than the best-dressed lie.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
When a second wife gets into a controversy with her husband about his grown children from his first marriage, she's a loser before she opens her mouth.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
When you encounter people with real problems, yours won't look so serious.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
Your husband may still be emotionally attached to his ex-wife, and apparently, she has some feelings for him. Don't make an issue of this. Be warm and comforting. Remember, if a man is fed well at home, he will not be inclined to go to restaurants.

Ann Landers (Eppie Lederer):
You're all you've got.

Juliet Lapidos:
The difference between being able to write 50 pages and being able to write a whole novel is one major difference between a professional and a dilettante.

Adair Lara:
Having something to say is overrated.

Adair Lara:
Women who buy perfume and flowers for themselves because their men won't do it are called "self basting".

Helen Lawrenson:
Whatever else can be said about sex, it cannot be called a dignified performance.

Fran Lebowitz:
Children ask better questions than adults. "May I have a cookie?" "Why is the sky blue?" and "What does a cow say?" are far more likely to elicit a cheerful response than "Where's your manuscript?" "Why haven't you called?" and "Who's your lawyer?"

Fran Lebowitz:
Food is an important part of a balanced diet.

Fran Lebowitz:
Humility is no substitute for a good personality.

Fran Lebowitz:
I figure you have the same chance of winning the lottery whether you play or not.

Fran Lebowitz:
I love being in love. I don't think anything compares with it, though I consider it very disruptive.

Fran Lebowitz:
I'm not interested in being a wife. I'm interested in being an empress.

Fran Lebowitz:
If you're going to America, bring your own food.

Fran Lebowitz:
Knowingness is sexy. The opposite of sexy is naivete.

Fran Lebowitz:
Life is something to do when you can't get to sleep.

Fran Lebowitz:
Nature is, by and large, to be found out of doors, a location where, it cannot be argued, there are never enough comfortable chairs.

Fran Lebowitz:
Original thought is like original sin: both happened before you were born to people you could not have possibly met.

Fran Lebowitz:
Polite conversation is rarely either.

Fran Lebowitz:
Remember that, as a teenager, you are in the last stage of your life when you will be happy to hear the phone is for you.

Fran Lebowitz:
Romantic love is mental illness, but it's a pleasurable one. It's a drug. It distorts reality, and that's the point of it. It would be impossible to fall in love with someone that you really saw.

Fran Lebowitz:
Success didn't spoil me, I've always been insufferable.

Fran Lebowitz:
The opposite of talking isn't listening. The opposite of talking is waiting.

Gypsy Rose Lee:
God is love, but get it in writing.

Harper Lee:
The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.

Susan Lee:
You're only has good as your last haircut.

Ursula K. LeGuin:
Love doesn't just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.

Ursula K. LeGuin:
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.

Carol Leifer:
I'm not into working out. My philosophy: no pain, no pain.

Harriet Lerner:
Intimate relationships cannot substitute for a life plan. But to have any meaning or viability at all, a life plan must include intimate relationships.

Mary Jean LeTendre:
Let us not confuse stability with stagnation.

Monica Lewinsky:
(On CNN's "Larry King Live", discussing her miraculous weight loss) I've learned not to put things in my mouth that are bad for me.

Caron Lieber:
A person who talks fast often says things she hasn't thought of yet.

Barbara Lieberman:
Anyone with more than 365 pair of shoes is a pig.

Beatrice Lillie:
I was born because my mother needed a fourth for meals.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh:
A simple enough pleasure, surely, to have breakfast alone with one's husband, but how seldom married people in the midst of life achieve it.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh:
Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day — like writing a poem, or saying a prayer.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh:
My passport photo is one of the most remarkable photographs I have ever seen — no retouching, no shadows, no flattery — just stark me.

Anne Morrow Lingbergh:
Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.

Anne Morrow Lingbergh:
I feel we are all islands in a common sea.

Alice Longworth:
If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me.

Sophia Loren:
There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of the people you love. When you learn to tap this source, you will truly have defeated age.

Mary Louise:
Unless you got a really good reason, you should be nice.

Clare Boothe Luce:
No good deed goes unpunished.

Clare Boothe Luce:
There is nothing like a good dose of another woman to make a man appreciate his wife.

Clare Boothe Luce:
They say that women talk too much. If you have worked in congress you know that the filibuster was invented by men.

Alison Lurie:
We can lie in the language of dress or try to tell the truth, but unless we are naked and bald, it is impossible to be silent.

Loretta Lynn:
I didn't know how babies were made until I was pregnant with my fourth child.

Jenna Lyons:
I think for me the best thing about being a woman is that I get credit for things I should be doing anyway.

Kay Lyons:
Yesterday is a canceled check; tomorrow is a promissory note; today is the only cash you have, so spend it wisely.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Rose Macauley:
It is a common delusion that you can make things better by talking about them.

Rose Macauley:
You should always believe what you read in the newspapers, for that makes them more interesting.

Betty MacLane:
Wouldn't it be nice if people purred as charmingly as cats when they are hungry? Half the quarrels in the world would never take place.

Betty MacLane:
You will find that being loved bears certain obligations whether you like it or not.

Shirley MacLaine:
It's useless to hold a person to anything he says while he's in love, drunk, or running for office.

Madonna:
Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another.

May Maloo:
There's one thing to be said for inviting trouble: it generally accepts.

Ruby Manikan:
If you educate a man you educate a person, but if you educate a woman you educate a family.

Marya Mannes:
All really great lovers are articulate, and verbal seduction is the surest road to actual seduction.

Katherine Mansfield:
I am treating you as my friend, asking you share my present minuses in the hope I can ask you to share my future pluses.

Maria T:
I'm not fighting. I just telling you what's right.

Maria T:
If everybody would just stop talking, my job would be a lot easier.

Maria T:
It's good practice to be silly. It's good for you.

Maria T:
Sometimes it's harder to be compassionate to people you know — including your family — than to total strangers.

Amanda Marcotte:
I doubt most people could survive being defined by the least advisable sexual encounter they've engaged in.

Deborah Martin:
Doctors and nurses are people who give you medicine until you die.

About Miss Manners:
For many years, Miss Manners' books and advice columns were written by Judith Martin (born in 1938). Over time, Judith's son and daughter, Nicholas and Jacobina Martin, became her co-authors. On August 29, 2013, Judith formally began to share credit for her advice column with Nicholas and Jacobina. Thus, where the nomme de plume "Miss Manners" originally referred to Judith Martin, the pen name is now shared, collectively, by Judith, Nicholas, and Jacobina.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
A letter, even a thank-you note, should be signed only by its author. Two people can issue an invitation, send a greeting card, make a formal announcement and write a movie script, but only one person can write a letter.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Anyone can make a mistake. But not everyone wants to go around with someone who is looking over his shoulder to catch him at it.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Attempts to be "classy" almost inevitably produce the opposite effect.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Charm does not consist of impressing other people, but of allowing others to impress you.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Children are basically adorable by definition, which is why society is expected to put up with so many uneducated and unproductive people.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Children's wish lists cease to be cute when they no longer believe that they are confiding in Santa Claus.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Civilization is based on the idea of reciprocity. A system by which some people always give and others never give back does not work.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Civilized people believe that the best use of money is to support personal life. Others believe that the best use of personal life is to make more money.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Contrary to popular belief, manners are far from superficial. Once ingrained, they become part of people's humanity, and can be a vast improvement on natural behavior.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Couples who go to parties should be prepared to socialize with the other guests. A dinner party is a social event, not a free place to go for a private date.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Courtesy requires making allowances for well-intentioned mistakes. You ignore them, unless they are being committed by your own children.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Deliver confidences in person or by telephone [not email]. Then, when people repeat what you have said, at least you can deny it.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Do not annoy others unnecessarily.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Do not forget that we want society to be concerned about the children of strangers, at least to the extent of paying taxes for schools.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Don't put it in writing unless you want everyone to know.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Each adult is responsible only for her own behavior, even if she is married.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Etiquette has to do with behavior that affects other people.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
"Elegant," used in regard to just about anything except mathematical solutions, is a tip-off to persnickety people that something is the opposite of what it pretends to be.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Even people who don't follow instructions have feelings.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Every romantic should have someone by his side saying, "What a charming idea. It won't work, of course, but it's such a charming idea."

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Family members do not pay for their meals, but are supposed to pitch in and help.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
For a busy person to express proper gratitude for another busy person's kind generosity is not a requirement that will ever pass out of fashion.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Funerals focus on the horrible fact that someone connected to you is now gone, and the frightening fact that one day you, too, will die. Nevertheless, they are a defining element of civilization. So get a grip on yourself and go.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Generosity and gratitude are inseparably linked.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Generosity and gratitude are permanently paired.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Generosity in offering hospitality is a hallmark of civilization.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Good intentions do not justify bad behavior.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
[Miss Manners' father during family holiday celebrations] "Go see what the children are doing and tell them to stop."

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Hospitality consists of sharing, not selling.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
If everyone's truest feelings about everyone else were constantly being made obvious, civilization would collapse.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
If you know someone who is willing to assume the task of writing graceful letters of thanks on your behalf, Miss Manners suggests marrying that person immediately, and not quarreling over other attributes.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
If written directions alone would suffice, libraries wouldn't need to have the rest of the universities attached.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
In a society where divorce is common, it is considered an achievement, if not a miracle of selflessness, to keep a marriage going.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
In better days, children were routinely taught table manners (and conversation) every night at the family dinner table.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
In private hospitality, as opposed to public ceremonies, the first consideration must be the guests.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
In regard to teaching children to offer thanks: gratitude is not a natural reaction to generosity, so the connection between the two must be taught.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
it is customary to declare all babies adorable: that is the tribute we pay to the future. One of those babies will grow up to be your gerontologist.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
It is difficult to give a party for both teenagers and adults, as they have different ideas of what constitutes a good time and different definitions of "loud".

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
It is impossible to run a democracy if people with opposing ideas refuse to deal with one another.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
It is, indeed, a trial to maintain the virtue of humility when one can't help being right.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
It is not uncommon for rude people to act offended when their rudeness is not tolerated.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
It is society's business to throw eligible people together without being responsible for the results.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
It is rude to discuss money with friends. However, once a friend enters into a financial agreement with you, this prohibition is no longer in effect.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
It is the essence of good manners to behave well when one does not feel like doing so. "He started it" is not an acceptable defense for being rude.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
[after the death of a loved one] It is when there is nothing more to be done that the reality of the loss often hits with full force.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
It would appear that everybody in America is too fat, except for those who are too thin; everybody is eating too much, except for those who are eating too little, and nobody is exercising enough, except for those who are exercising too much.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Ladies are conditioned to notice one another's rings.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Manners cannot be encouraged or taught unless the underlying premise exists that the feelings of other people matter.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Miss Manners defines etiquette as all human social behavior.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Miss Manners has never subscribed to the notion that identifying a psychological impulse excuses succumbing to it.
(Compare to the Dr. Switzer's advice)

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Most people who appear to be asking for your advice are merely seeking approval of what they have already decided to do.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Much rudeness is committed by people who are unable to put themselves in others' places.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Never say anything in public that you do not want overheard. (And when you do so anyway, keep your voice down and avoid using names.)

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Never start a street fight while you are holding a baby.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
No civilized person can allow his or her mother to be publicly insulted, deservedly or not.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
No good ever comes of telling people why you don't like them.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
No one in his right mind would put anything private into email.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Nobody wants to hear about anyone else's trip. The only thing they dread more is looking at the pictures from such trips.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Nothing can relieve parents of the 20-year, around-the-clock task of teaching their own children how to behave toward others. That burden is called child-rearing, and there are no quick fixes.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Nothing detracts the proper attention from a wedding as a self-centered bride.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Nothing says Christmas like a bunch of unspeakably rude people speaking unspeakable things to one another.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Now that the Internet has become a giant scrapbook for everyone's pictures, visual privacy is becoming a lost concept.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
[being set up on a blind date] People seem to think enjoying old movies and walks on the beach are more important qualities to specify than manners.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
One rule about correcting others is that you do so only if the error is something that can be easily and immediately remedied (the Spinach-on-the-Tooth rule). Another is you not shame innocent people by demonstrating that you know more than they do,

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
People devote so much time and anguish providing excuses, true or false, when excuses are rarely necessary. What you need is an apology.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
People do not absorb moral lessons from those who trample on their feelings.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
People who ask around for opinions usually want only validation.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Perpetual self-sacrifice is too high a standard to use in navigating the vicissitudes of life. Etiquette insists that everyone be treated with respect and dignity. It bans rudeness, even on provocation, and the ban extends to using knowledge of etiquette to point out the lapses of others. It requires providing comfort for guests and sympathy and helpfulness for the afflicted and the bereaved. It requires overlooking unintentional faults. But it has its limits.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Presents are always voluntary, and attempts to extract them are rude and therefore justly offensive to the targets.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Proper meals are the centerpieces of a civilized life, featuring such delightful (but now endangered) practices as conversation and table manners.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Romance: Miss Manners finds it amazing that those who do most to deny it still crave it.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Serious religion is regarded as a never-ending quest.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Shunning scoundrels is one of society's duties, sadly neglected by those who refuse to pass judgment, as well as by those who may have discovered that scoundrels sometimes make lively companions.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Since the 19th century, it has been thought that the proper sartorial division between the genders is that the gentlemen should be dressed conventionally, distinguished only by the perfection of their tailoring, while ladies should indulge in fanciful variety.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
The ability to quiet people down without riling them up is a skill that everyone needs. This is done by flashing them a regretful and sympathetic little smile, while humorously laying your finger across your lips. If this fails to shut them up, you should say, "I'm sorry, but would you please talk elsewhere?"

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
The ability to say no politely is an essential social skill. All that is really needed is the ability to repeat "No, thank you," interspersed with such small politenesses as "I'm so sorry" and "You're kind to ask" and "I wish you luck."

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
The Academy Awards show is a good opportunity to make funny comments and a bad opportunity to pick up fashion tips.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
The essential lesson of child-rearing is the counterintuitive realization that there are other people in the world and that one must take their feelings into account.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
The essentials of a letter of thanks are: a specific, favorable reaction to the present; an expression of gratitude; a bit of chattiness to establish that it is not just the present that is valued, but the relationship.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
The etiquette of symphony concerts is that the only muscles that may be moved are the ones needed for turning to glare at those who dare to breathe too loudly.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
The most conventional statements are both true and welcome.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
The nature of the telephone is inherently rude because it interrupts people.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
The only time it is proper to question people about their bloodlines is when you are contemplating breeding with them.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
The social sciences have a tradition of using any available evidence to bolster one's own prejudice.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
The successful diplomat leaves everyone thinking that he sympathizes with them.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
The unlimited space on the Internet — and the widespread general desire to pour out their lives and thoughts — seems to have turned everyone into the person no one wants to sit next to on the airplane.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
There are no cases in which rudeness is acceptable. Miss Manners begs you to cease that line of thought forever.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
There is a general rule that applies to all major changes in other people's lives: Do not tell people news about themselves that you have heard or guessed. If the people concerned want you to know what is going on in their lives, they will tell you. Examples: — You do not congratulate a lady on her pregnancy, no matter what shape she is in, unless she mentions it. — You do not ask a couple whether they are engaged, even when you see them at a wedding where you are carried away with romance. — You do not talk to a high school senior about colleges unless he volunteers that he has already been accepted. — You do not commiserate with people who look tired or sick, even when they announce that they are, in fact, sick or tired.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
There is a rule that people who are introduced at a social event should include their hosts if they decide to meet again.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
There is no point in sending presents into a void from which there is no response.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
There is no polite way to tell people to give you money or objects, and no polite way to entertain people at their expense. These practices are no less vulgar for having become commonplace. Begging is the last resort of the desperate, not a social form for those who want to live beyond their means.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
There is nothing like an old-fashioned ballet class run like a Siberian labor camp to give the lie to the notion that children are immune to disciplined formality — and to make even the most exacting parents seem lenient.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Think of rudeness as a pollutant, which you should refrain from spreading;.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Through a combination of popular psychology and expanding technology, we have come to a presumption that all our thoughts and feelings are worth uttering.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
To this very day, horrified young ladies ask older ones, "Didn't they used to make you wear little white gloves?" Well, at least they didn't make us pierce our noses or navels.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Two bad sources for etiquette instruction: pretentious restaurants and friends who don't mind embarrassing you in public.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Warning to voters: If you don't want badly behaved people in office, do not vote for badly behaved candidates.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
We have rituals so that people under the stress do not have to improvise. As anyone knows who has attended an embarrassing wedding, amateurs are not good at inventing ceremonies, even for themselves.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
We are all entitled to our little harmless habits, but we are not entitled to demand approval for them.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
What is fun to some but disgusting to others should be done in private.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
We now have a generation to whom the concept of privacy is bewildering.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
What shall I do with the tea bag?" is an excellent question to ask your hostess. After all, it is her tablecloth.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
What we have come to, through a combination of popular psychology and expanding technology, is a presumption that all our thoughts and feelings are worth uttering.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
When, oh when, are people going to learn that the Internet is not a safe place to store private information?

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Why don't you learn to order the amount of food you expect to eat?

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
Why this is, Miss Manners cannot say, but she knows that the sure way to discourage romance is to announce that a person is actively looking for it.

Judith Martin (Miss Manners):
You can do what you like with a present once it is yours, provided the giver of it never discovers that it was not entirely satisfactory.

About Miss Manners:
For many years, Miss Manners' books and advice columns were written by Judith Martin (born in 1938). Over time, Judith's son and daughter, Nicholas and Jacobina Martin, became her co-authors. On August 29, 2013, Judith formally began to share credit for her advice column with Nicholas and Jacobina. Thus, where the nomme de plume "Miss Manners" originally referred to Judith Martin, the pen name is now shared, collectively, by Judith, Nicholas, and Jacobina.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
A commitment made verbally through an open car window as the light is changing in a heavy downpour with children screaming in the backseat is still a commitment.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
A gentleman does not return rudeness with further rudeness.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
A large part of being an adult is considering the feelings of others, even if that sometimes means putting aside your own.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
A negative reaction to well-intended gifts dampens the giver's enthusiasm for a repeat performance.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
[Question] Am I obliged to write a thank-you note for a thank-you gift? [Answer] That this question is asked frequently astonishes Miss Manners. Letters of thanks need not be answered, but presents, for whatever reason they are given, must always be acknowledged.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Appearing to pay attention when someone is speaking is one of the cornerstones of real social interaction.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
As decent human beings, we are supposed to be pleased by one another's successes.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Asking for presents is always rude, greedy and nasty. It doesn't matter what the occasion is, or how customary it is for presents to be given

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Atrocious table manners, left unchecked, do not become more endearing with time.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
[when you are outside an important event] Being able to act as if you can hear and see what is going on — even when you cannot — is a basic life skill.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Being listened to should be sufficiently gratifying in itself, whether or not the advice is followed.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Being true to oneself is a poor excuse for being rude to others.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Child-rearing takes a couple of decades, but is about as rewarding a pursuit as exists

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Church music is indeed intended for the glory of God, not the pleasure of worshippers.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Question: Could you please tell me how to eat cooked peas?  Answer: Chase them around the plate with your fork. You will not catch all of them, but learning to accept that should make your life easier in other respects.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Despite the many arguments to the contrary, social media is not really social. Its communication is mostly one-sided, which is perhaps why it is attractive to many in the first place.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Dinner is a social ritual, not just a feeding time. The ability to alternate talking and chewing, without ever mixing the two, is one of the basic skills of civilization.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Dishonesty is not the only alternative to honesty. There is also the highly underrated virtue of shutting up.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Donations given to charities in another person's name are not true presents.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Dragging anyone into participating in a party activity is an assault on dignity and good manners.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Efficiency is not the standard of good manners.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Emotional reactions to the vicissitudes of life are not always some form of illness and can commonly be dealt with.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Etiquette does not dictate how one should feel, only how one should behave.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Etiquette does not require any response to mass-mailed announcements about people you do not know.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Etiquette does not require you — indeed, it forbids you — to put a soup spoon into your mouth. Soup is properly eaten by gently tipping the side of the spoon toward the mouth

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Etiquette is intended to regulate human behavior in the communal interest, but it is a voluntary system: it does not deter those who are determined to behave badly and feel no shame. It lacks weapons other than social disapproval and exclusion.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Etiquette prefers an indirect approach when it avoids giving offense. In consequence, people who are indifferent to harm accuse those with good manners of being insufficiently honest.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Etiquette supports a polite fiction: that all gifts are equally heartfelt. It is for this reason that price tags are removed before bestowing presents, and it is one of many reasons that Miss Manners objects to cash gifts

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Even the greatest food snobs consider scrambled eggs to be a great treat when served at midnight.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Expressing thanks is not just a chore to repay a debt, but a reminder of not having to suffer alone.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Families help out one another without expectation of recompense.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Family meals are as much about conversation as about food.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Food and drink packaging should never be seen outside of the kitchen.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
For those of us over the age of 3, the function of the fork is more important than that of the spoon.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Force yourself to be nice, even when you do not feel like it.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Friendship is a pleasure, based on mutual understanding and good feelings, often expressed in reciprocal acts of kindness

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Gift registries are so common now that the very idea of deferring to the donors' ideas is deemed naive. Does anyone stop to think how callous and pointless all this makes the entire concept of giving and receiving presents?

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Gratitude is permanently and inextricably linked to generosity. Those whose generosity is ignored are justified in concluding that it has not achieved its purpose of pleasing. And those who are unwilling to express gratitude should not accept favors, presents or other forms of kindness.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Guests, as well as hosts, are obligated to help make a party work. A party in which people stood around waiting for others to clamor for their attention would be pretty dismal. Wallflowers should be out gathering other wallflowers in the interest of making a bouquet.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Handwritten letters may seem anachronistic, but they are more personal. For most messages, ease and speed make electronic methods preferable. But when expressing deep emotion, such as gratitude and condolences, the labor of writing with one's own hand shows that thought and care were considered even more important.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
How people treat those who are not in a position to defend themselves is a good test of character.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
However compliments are phrased they should be accepted, not analyzed until they are no longer pleasant.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Hurt feelings are non-negotiable, and only build over time. Miss Manners suggests you be careful of that.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
If couples were not allowed an occasional plea of "Honey, I know you don't mean it, but there's something that drives me crazy,'' the divorce rate would be approximately 100 percent.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
If people paid more attention to their mothers' pronouncements, Miss Manners' job would be a lot easier.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
If you begrudge the happiness of others, you will violate not only the holiday spirit but your own spirit of humanity.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
If you call off the wedding, the presents must be returned unused.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
If you can placate a difficult relative with a trivial concession, do so.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
If you keep comparing your life to others', you will always be dissatisfied, no matter what your circumstances.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
If you step on someone's foot, it hurts even if you didn't mean to do it.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
If you wish to shield yourself from lies and propaganda, Miss Manners suggests that you disengage from offensive social media.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Ignoring presents is a sign that they are unwelcome.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
"I'll pass" is a proper expression when you have a bad bridge hand, but insulting when you have received an invitation.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
In cases where intent is unclear, etiquette, as a rule, adopts the least insulting interpretation possible.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
In polite language, "None of your business" is translated as "That is a personal matter."

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
It is a great advantage of etiquette that it does not notice individual behavior that does not affect other people.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
It is a naive fantasy that total openness necessarily produces acceptance.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
It is endlessly annoying that people seem to find the time to text pictures of goldfish that look like humans, yet somehow are unable to answer direct questions like, "Are we still on for parachuting tomorrow?"

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
It is foolish to antagonize the person who will be feeding you.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
It is one of Miss Manners's great discoveries that one needn't contradict others in order to set them straight.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
It is surely one of the silliest prejudices in modern society that growing older is considered so unfortunate a condition that it is supposed to be a compliment to pretend that it did not happen.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
It is unpleasant to think that one's looks are being evaluated, even favorably, when going about one's business in public. We have the fiction that we can move about anonymously.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
It is rude to decline an invitation saying that you do not feel like making small talk. (Miss Manners hates to inform you that is the very definition of a party.)

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
It seems strange that people erupt in anger when companies inadvertently expose private data while they are themselves busy smearing the most intimate details of their lives over every reachable electronic surface.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Language is a shared means of communication and when you unilaterally redefine common words, you will have to explain what you mean, patiently.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Letters of thanks are not the occasion to unload your complaints. Everyone needs some positive feedback, and it is in your interest to encourage generous people.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Manners don't always have to make sense. A culture will become used to, and attached to, a certain way of doing things which is enough justification for following its harmless traditions.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Menus have become battlegrounds, now that people care more about what they eat than with whom they eat.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Miss Manners considers baby registries to be the etiquette equivalent of childish grocery store demands for chocolate breakfast cereal, ice cream and checkout-line candy.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Miss Manners has been trying for years to dispel the self-hatred that leads people to think of growing old as shameful.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Miss Manners has long been trying, without success, to explain to people that they are not in charge of ordering their own presents. Gift registries and other commercial interests prey on their greed to persuade them otherwise.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Miss Manners is aware that it is often easier or more convenient to be rude than to be polite, and that many honest, natural impulses are rude. But she does not accept that as justification for the behavior.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Miss Manners is astonished at the number of people who would rather prove a point than please a spouse.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Miss Manners is never afraid of appearing stuffy.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Miss Manners is sorry that you hate your mother-in-law but does not consider that an excuse for your insulting your husband.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Miss Manners knows that any other columnist would diagnose depression and tell you to seek treatment. Aside from the fact that she doesn't practice medicine, she believes that emotional reactions to the vicissitudes of life are not always some form of illness, and can commonly be dealt with.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Miss Manners recommends letter-writing. What it lacks in immediacy, it gains in maintaining train of thought.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Miss Manners wants you to learn to say, "How nice for you" without a trace of sarcasm.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Money — however needed, appreciated and kindly intended — is an uncouth present among friends.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Most men will feel bad if they think they have misbehaved.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
"Multitasking" — a modern word coined to replace the phrase "not paying attention".

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Not caring about the feelings of others is practically the definition of rudeness.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Nothing annoys rude people more than to have their unpleasant remarks mistaken for polite ones.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Nowadays people consider it a disgrace to admit that they are not stressed.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
One of the drawbacks of work friendships is that bonding over complaining about the boss is not necessarily the way to find the happiest of people.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
One of the pleasures of hospitality is putting together new combinations of people who might enjoy one another's company.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
One of the few advantages Miss Manners sees to social media is that people can opt out of group conversations rather than continuing to argue.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
One of the things most divorced couples realize too quickly is that they no longer have to do what the other says.  (Wednesday, April 24, 2019)
(Compare to Ask Amy on Tuesday, June 24, 2014)

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
One should comply with the wishes of the dying, if possible. This often requires restraint on all sides, and possibly discomfort. It certainly requires knowing what those wishes are. This is not an area in which outside judgments about what is fitting will be welcome.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Our society has the appalling concept that it is embarrassing to age, and that we therefore have to keep up the elaborate pretense that everyone seems young.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Part of the skill of saying no is to shut up afterward and not babble on, offering material for an argument.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
People do not respond well to embarrassment and scolding.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
People believe that the virtue of truth-telling trumps all other virtues, and that it requires telling the whole truth — which often means only airing the teller's opinions, and usually not the nice ones.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
People look so proud of themselves when they keep on helping after they have been thanked and told to stop

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
People spoiling for a fight are not put off by facts, any more than by common decency.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
People who are incorrectly credited with being gracious never deny it.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
People who have been taught from childhood to dash off letters of thanks have easier lives than those to whom the idea is new.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
People who ignore presents find it a burden to receive them. Therefore, the most tactful response would be to stop sending them

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
[how to stop someone who wants to tell you gossip] Practice listening attentively in a way that, nevertheless, gives the distinct impression that you missed every word.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Presents are a symbolic way of showing that one has noticed other people's preferences.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Presents are not owed, like some sort of tax for being in a family. The idea is supposed to be mutual thoughtfulness.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Pretending to not understand is one of Miss Manners' favorite techniques for countering rudeness. It is particularly effective in deflating those who think they are being charming or funny, and it avoids the bother of having to take offense at casually offensive behavior.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Proper etiquette is often shown through symbolism. For example, taking one's cap off in school provides no practical purpose, but it shows reverence for the institution

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Proper guests respond to invitations promptly; arrive reasonably on time; behave sociably; leave before they, or their hosts, lose interest; and send handwritten thank-you letters for the hospitality. Proper hosts do everything else.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Pushing people to do something they have said they do not want to do is rude, no matter their reason.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Putting cameras into telephones was a step backward for civilization.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Registries are never proper. Not for weddings, not for baby showers and not for birthdays; not for christenings, bar mitzvahs, quinceaneras, sweet sixteens, graduations, engagements or debutante balls; not for announcing gender, changing gender, getting a job, losing a job, buying a house, divorcing, retiring or dying. It is simply never polite to ask someone to buy you a present. Everyone is just going to have to go through life's milestones without thinking of them as free shopping sprees.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Retelling one's stories is human nature at any age, as is boredom and impatience among unwilling audience members

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Ritual is of great importance and comfort when dealing with overwhelming emotion.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Romantic comedies — and predatory men — have all but ruined the chivalrous gesture.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Social media did not invent bragging or celebrity gossip: it is only a system for distributing them widely.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Some professions, by their nature, risk blurring the distinction between the professional and the personal. It is natural to think that your doctor's interest in your health is greater than that a scientist feels for a lab rat.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Sometimes it is worthwhile to make trivial compromises in order to make someone happy.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Sometimes we do things a certain way just because that is the way we do things.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Survival tactics: ask for help and if none is forthcoming, solve the problem yourself.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The basic lesson of etiquette: There are other people in the universe and their feelings must be taken into account.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The basic skills of civilization as taught at family dinners: Table manners, Conversation, Nutrition, Pretending interest in how others spent the day.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The best antidote to someone else's pettiness, Miss Manners maintains, is resisting it oneself.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The bizarre notion that hugging should inspire affectionate goodwill, rather than express it, was promulgated in the pop psychology movement of the 1960s, perhaps not unrelated to chemical and erotic stimuli.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The drinking straw is the tank top of eating utensils.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The freedom with which casual acquaintances — and even strangers — press the most personal questions is a constant source of astonishment to Miss Manners.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The gift registry itself perverts the custom of giving presents, which are supposed to be chosen, and voluntarily given, as a symbol of thoughtfulness and good wishes

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The idea of exchanging presents is not to barter goods. It is to symbolize that not only do you have some feelings for another person, but you appreciate that person's interests and taste. This is not easy.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The Industrial Revolution allowed the mass manufacture of not just of goods, but also mistakes.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The only events at which the guest of honor is not expected to participate are baby showers and funerals.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The outlook is not bright for people who live together in a state of annoyance.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The point of funerals is not to gossip about the deceased to whom you are paying respect, but to comfort the living.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The problem with reading between the lines is that the print is so small.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The purpose of a present is to show gratitude or appreciation. Efforts to make the act of giving as efficient — in other words, effortless — as possible invalidate the reason for giving the present. Wrapping and accompanying notes emphasize those reasons. Were efficiency the only standard, one could merely slow down the car and toss the present onto the porch.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The reason etiquette objects so strongly to guests of guests is that they impose the duties of a host on you in regard to someone you did not invite.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The relationship of customers to one another is none of the server's business or concern.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The scourge of casual interactions is not "How is your day going?" but, "We should get together." If you have made numerous offers and all of them have been rejected, it is a clue that your friend is not serious about getting together.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The stress of making small talk with in-laws is called being part of a family.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The telephone is an inherently rude instrument. It shrilly demands attention, with no consideration of the circumstances of the person being called. As valuable as it is for emergencies, and for people who really want to talk to each other in real time, it is generally a disruptive nuisance.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The temptation to give advice to those who don't want it is strong. Resist.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The truly essential bargain between host and guest requires the guest only to respond promptly, show up on time, socialize with other guests, thank the host, write additional thanks and reciprocate. You needn't bring anything.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The ubiquitous photographer is one of the great nuisances of our time.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The underlying principle of manners is that other people have feelings which must be taken into account. You may not always yield to them, but if you do not understand what they are, you are going to keep antagonizing others unintentionally, and that makes for an unpleasant life

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The underlying principles of manners: respect, fairness, and congeniality.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The very idea of marriage is to blend two families and attempt to create harmony between them.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
The way one was brought up isn't an excuse for rude behavior.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
There are always proper responses, even to rude questions.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
There are many aspects of food consumption that are not pretty, and some people have stronger stomachs than others. Recognizing this, food etiquette exists so that people can share a meal without disgusting one another. Sometimes it restrains us from doing things; other times it requires us not to notice.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
There are only two acceptable responses to solicitations for money: 1. ignore, or 2. give.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
There are two reasons for attending a funeral: showing respect for the deceased and supporting the bereaved. Either one should be sufficient motivation for going.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
There is a common misperception that awkwardness, because it is uncomfortable, is also intolerable.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
There is a rule against discussing parties with people who are not or were not invited.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
There is no etiquette rule that decrees one must give out personal information to anyone who asks.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
There is no way to wonder about someone's marital status while preserving both a lack of interest and a sense of propriety.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
There is nothing quite so disarming to a tantrum-prone individual than to be spoken to calmly and rationally — and more important, to be taken seriously.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
There is nothing to be gained by arguing with someone who is good enough to pay you compliments.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
There will always be someone prettier, smarter, richer, funnier, kinder and more tech-savvy than you.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Those who consider alcohol to be a necessary ingredient of hospitality should stick to bars.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Try as you might — and Miss Manners has mightily tried — you cannot control other people's actions

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Try not to annoy your relatives unnecessarily.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Unlike the legal system, etiquette does not write its rules into precisely worded statutes that can be pored over by lawyers, judges, and people who are less clever than they believe and have more free time than is good for them.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Unlike morals, manners apply only when they affect other people. Much as we admire those who behave perfectly when they are unobserved, their virtue is unconnected with etiquette.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
We are each born with the idea that our feelings are the only ones that matter, and with any luck we are indulged in this belief for about six weeks. Parents who attempt to sustain this belief are giving their children an enormous handicap in dealing with the rest of the world.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
We know, from the Internet, how people feel empowered to be obnoxious when they think they are anonymous.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
We expect companies to operate within both social norms and the law; we do not necessarily expect them to be altruistic or work against their own self-interest. Miss Manners therefore expresses neither cynicism nor disparagement when she expects all company policies to serve the interests of the company.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
What is Thanksgiving without a nutty relative?

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
When people badger you for your opinion, they only want to make sure that it agrees with theirs.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
When someone declares an intention to be honest, nastiness is bound to follow. Dishonesty is not the only alternative to honesty. There is also the highly underrated virtue of shutting up.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
When someone has tried to please you, it is rude, as well as disheartening, to respond by announcing that the effort was a failure.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Question: When the mother of the family dies, who becomes her successor? Her daughter or her daughter-in-law?  Answer: The one who is willing to take on the responsibility of maintaining harmony among all members of the family, and who is willing to cede precedence gracefully if the father ever marries again.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Whoever thought of putting cameras into telephones probably had no idea how much boredom would thus be thrust upon the world.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Why is it that the prospect of a new life seems ever more enchanting then the life itself?

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Working your way up in the ranks and not getting recognized for it is a necessary stage of life.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
You cannot repay hospitality by usurping it. You meant well, but bringing part of the meal without authorization from the hostess is neither helpful nor flattering.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
You do not wish to be the student whose dog is always eating his homework

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
You should resolve not to seek public approval of your private business, when you are not also prepared to accept public disapproval.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Question: Should I loan a small amount of money to a friend? Answer: If you are sure that you can, if necessary, spare both.

Judith, Nicholas, Jacobina Martin (Miss Manners):
Question: What do I take to Thanksgiving dinner when the hostess said to "bring nothing"? Answer: An appetite, good cheer, sociability toward everyone there, and an attitude of thankfulness.

Florida Scott Maxwell:
No matter how old a mother is she watches her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.

Amy McBride:
People just need brains.

Mary McCarthy:
People with bad consciences always fear the judgment of children.

Collen McCullough:
The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate twenty-five-year-old men more.

Mary Mcdowell:
The test of man is how well he is able to feel about what he thinks. The test of a woman is how well she is able to think about what she feels.

Molly McGee:
When a man brings his wife flowers for no reason, there's a reason.

Phyllis McGinley:
Getting along with men isn't what's truly important. The vital knowledge is how to get along with one man.

Mignon McLaughlin:
Even cowards can endure hardship; only the brave can endure suspense.

Mignon McLaughlin:
Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.

Mignon McLaughlin:
In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing.

Mignon McLaughlin:
Likely as not, the child you can do the least with will do the most to make you proud.

Mignon McLaughlin:
Many are saved from sin by being so inept at it.

Mignon McLaughlin:
Most of us become parents long before we have stopped being children.

Mignon McLaughlin:
No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you'll see why.

Mignon McLaughlin:
Our strength is often composed of the weakness we're damned if we're going to show.

Mignon McLaughlin:
The head never rules the heart, but just becomes its partner in crime.

Mignon McLaughlin:
There are so many things that we wish we had done yesterday, so few that we feel like doing today.

Mignon McLaughlin:
What you have become is the price you paid to get what you used to want.

Margaret Mead:
Mothers are a biological necessity; fathers are a social invention.

Margaret Mead:
Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead:
One of the oldest human needs is having someone to wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.

Margaret Mead:
We are now at a point where we must educate our children in what no one knew yesterday, and prepare our schools for what no one knows yet.

Audrey Meadows:
We never leave our roots. We just grow new branches.

Henrietta Mears:
It is difficult to steer a parked car, so get moving.

Golda Meir:
I must govern the clock, not be governed by it.

Golda Meir:
Moses dragged us for 40 years through the desert to bring us to the one place in the Middle East where there was no oil.

Golda Meir:
Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you're aboard, there's nothing you can do.

Golda Meir:
Those who don't know how to weep with their whole heart, don't know how to laugh either.

Golda Meir:
Whether women are better than men I cannot say, but I can say they are certainly no worse.

Cherise Merritt:
Eat the meat and spit out the bone.

Bette Midler:
Cats always seem so very wise,
When staring with their half-closed eyes.
Can they be thinking, "I'll be nice,
And maybe she will feed me twice?"

Bette Midler:
I married a German. Every night I dress up as Poland and he invades me.

Bette Midler:
I wouldn't say I invented tacky, but I definitely brought it to its present high popularity.

Bette Midler:
The worst part of success is to try to find someone who is happy for you.

Agnes De Mille:
The truest expression of a people is in its dances and its music. Bodies never lie.

Margaret Miller:
Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness.

Mistinguette:
A kiss can be a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation point. That's the basic spelling that every woman ought to know.

Margaret Mitchell:
Until you lose your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.

Maria Mitchell:
Study as if you were going to live forever; live as if you were going to die tomorrow.

Nancy Mitford:
I love children — especially when they cry, for then someone takes them away.

Nancy Mitford:
To fall in love you have to be in the state of mind for it to take, like a disease.

Nancy Molitor:
By accepting what we cannot control, we actually feel more in control.

Scarlet Monahan:
I used to be a political feminist, but then the spots cleared up, I lost weight, and now I'm just fine.

Marilyn Monroe:
I have too many fantasies to be a housewife.

Marilyn Monroe:
I've been on a calendar, but never on time.

Mary Montagu:
Be plain in dress, and sober in your diet, In short, my dear, kiss me and be quiet.

Mary Montagu:
I prefer liberty to chains of diamonds.

Maria Montessori:
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.

Helen Moody:
If you see a tennis player who looks as if he is working hard, then that means he isn't very good.

Mary Tyler Moore:
In my mind I can see a lot of the new thinking about the female role, but emotionally I'm not there. I tend to defer to my husband, to accept his dominant role.

Mary Tyler Moore:
I think women are okay. I mean, I like women, but I know a lot of people don't like them.

Mary Tyler Moore:
There are certain things I'd rather talk over only with another woman.

Mary Tyler Moore:
Unisex looks like it's here, but I hope we never lose our sexuality. I wouldn't like that at all.

Hannah More:
Going to the opera, like getting drunk, is a sin that carries its own punishment with it.

Julie Morgenstern:
If you're living with someone, you have to give half of everything.

Julie Morgenstern:
What's more important, an object or a relationship?

Patricia Moyes:
I simple cannot understand the passion that some people have for making themselves thoroughly uncomfortable and then boasting about it afterwards.

Iris Murdoch:
Falling out of love is very enlightening. For a short while you see the world with new eyes.

Iris Murdoch:
Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.

Iris Murdoch:
Writing is like getting married. One should never commit oneself until one is amazed at one's luck.

Kelly Murdock-Billy:
You reach a certain point that, when you've been through enough crap, you know what you want when you see it.

Debby Myrent:
Whatever you do every day affects you.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Azar Nafis:
The existence of the writer is to write, and to write is to tell the truth.

Carry Nation:
(On smoking) I want all hellions to quit puffing that hell fume in God's clean air.

Martina Navratilova:
Just go out there and do what you have to do.

Martina Navratilova:
Whoever said, "It's not whether you win or lose that counts," probably lost.

Suzanne Necker:
Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them.

Patricia Neill:
I may be a dumb blonde, but I'm not that blonde.

Cythina Nelms:
Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy.

Lady Dorothy Nevill:
The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing in the right place, but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

Johanna Newell:
Being productive keeps your mind off other stuff.

Johanna Newell:
Breaking up is a time for moving on, not for writing your history in indelible ink.

Johanna Newell:
When you made a face and your mother said, "Be careful, your face might freeze that way," she was right. It just takes longer than you think.

Anais Nin:
Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.

Anais Nin:
I postpone death by living, by suffering, by error, by risking, by giving, by losing.

Anais Nin:
It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.

Anais Nin:
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.

Anais Nin:
The role of a writer is not to say what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.

Anais Nin:
We don't see things as they are. We see them as we are.

Kathleen Norias:
Just the knowledge that a good book is awaiting one at the end of a long day makes that day happier.

Kathleen Norris:
When you are unhappy, is there anything more maddening than to be told that you should be contented with your lot?

Not Naturally Selected [a Dear Wendy reader]:
Life is too short to wait to be honest with people.

Kim Novak [in "Boys' Night Out"]:
When it comes to sex, men can't keep from lying and women can't keep from telling the truth. I don't know which is worse.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Edna O'Brien:
The vote means nothing to women. We should be armed.

Flannery O'Connor:
Everywhere I go I'm asked if the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

Mary O'Connor:
It's not so much how busy you are, but why you are busy. The bee is praised. The mosquito is swatted.

Catherine O'Hara:
Night time is really the best time to work. All the ideas are there to be yours because everyone else is asleep.

Georgia O'Keefe:
Nobody sees a flower really, it is so small. We haven't time and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.

Ann Oakley:
There are always women who will take men on their own terms. If I were a man I wouldn't bother to change while there are women like that around.

Joyce Carol Oates:
If you explore beneath shyness or party chit-chat, you can sometimes turn a dull exchange into an intriguing one. I've found this to be particularly true in the case of professors or intellectuals, who are full of fascinating information, but need encouragement before they'll divulge it.

Joyce Carol Oates:
When you're fifty, you start thinking about things you haven't thought about before. I used to think getting old was about vanity, but actually it's about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.

Aline Ohanesian:
The past affects us whether we remember it or not.

Judith Olney:
Always serve too much hot fudge sauce on hot fudge sundaes. It makes people overjoyed, and puts them in your debt.

Jackie Kennedy Onassis:
Sex is a bad thing because it rumples the clothes.

Jackie Kennedy Onassis:
What is sad for women of my generation is that they weren't supposed to work if they had families. What were they going to do when the children are grown? Watch the raindrops coming down the window pane?

Elisabeth Ortenberg:
Once you shape a company to service the marketplace and your services are necessary, the company develops a compulsion of its own to grow.

Marie Osmond:
If you're going to be able to look back on something and laugh about it, you might as well laugh about it now.

Cynthia Ozick:
In saying what is obvious, never choose cunning. Yelling works better.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Emmeline Pankhurst:
The argument of the broken pane of glass is the most valuable argument in modern politics.

Pradnya Parulekar:
Americans will sacrifice any amount of order to preserve liberty. Canadians will sacrifice any amount of liberty to preserve order.

Dorothy Parker:
(About an actress) She runs the gamut of emotions from A to B.

Dorothy Parker:
(Book review) This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."

Dorothy Parker:
(Suggested for her tombstone) "This is on me."

Dorothy Parker:
(Telegram to friend who had given birth) "Dear Mary: We all knew you had it in you."

Dorothy Parker:
Brevity is the soul of lingerie.

Dorothy Parker:
Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants.

Dorothy Parker:
Four be the things I am wiser to know: idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.

Dorothy Parker:
His voice was a intimate as the rustle of sheets.

Dorothy Parker:
I don't care what anybody says about me as long as it isn't true.

Dorothy Parker:
I'm never going to be famous. I don't do anything, not one single thing. I used to bite my nails, but I don't even do that any more.

Dorothy Parker:
If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

Dorothy Parker:
If you want to know what God thinks of money, just look at the people he gave it to.

Dorothy Parker:
Misfortune, and recited misfortune especially, may be prolonged to the point where it ceases to excite pity and arouses only irritation.

Dorothy Parker:
One more drink and I'll be under the host.

Dorothy Parker:
The best way to keep children at home is to make the home atmosphere pleasant — and let the air out of their tires.

Dorothy Parker:
The two most beautiful words in the English language are "check enclosed".

Dorothy Parker:
There's a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

Dorothy Parker:
You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.

Ellen Parr:
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

Frances Partridge:
It is a purely relative matter where one draws the Plimsoll line of condemnation. If you find the whole of humanity falls below it you have simply made a mistake and drawn it too high, and are probably below it yourself.

Alice Paul:
Once you put your hand to the plow, you can't put it down until you get to the end of the row.

Anna Pavlova:
No one can arrive from being talented alone. God gives talent; work transforms talent into genius.

Ruth Stafford Peale:
Find a need and fill it.

Allison Pearson:
Guilt is to motherhood what rain is to Seattle.

Allison Pearson:
Being a mother is to be guilty.

Debbi Pearson:
I went on five cruises in a year, and I can't even tell you what year it was.

Mildred Webster Pepper:
The mistake a lot of politicians make is in forgetting they've been appointed and thinking they've been annointed.

Marilyn Peterson:
You don't die of a broken heart, you only wish you did.

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps:
Happiness must be cultivated. It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will run to weeds.

Susan Pierce:
Being annoyed at something is the mother of invention.

Susan Pierce:
Human beings were not designed with the requirement to be clean.

Susan Pierce:
Learning should be more than being given answers to memorize. A school should teach you the current state of affairs, and then give you a list of questions that no one can answer. That, more than anything, will inspire you to think for yourself.

Susan Pierce:
Over the course of your life, there will be several times when you feel that nothing you are doing makes any sense, and you have to start all over again.

Susan Pierce:
The purpose of your life is to find interesting work. Once you realize this, everything becomes much better.

Marge Piercy:
The people I love the best, jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows.

Marge Piercy:
The pitcher cries for water to carry, and a person for work that is real.

Monica Piper:
A man on a date wonders if he'll get lucky. The woman already knows.

Belva Plain:
It was unwise to plan too carefully. It took only one great failure to learn that lesson.

Barbara Pletcher:
The real winners in life are the people who look at every situation with an expectation that they can make it work or make it better.

Linda Poindexter:
Do what you need to do. Then think forward, not backward.

Linda Poindexter:
Don't feel you are responsible for making anybody else's life work for them. What you are responsible for is living your life in a way that backs up your belief system.

Linda Poindexter:
Live in a way that backs up your belief system. It has nothing to do with the outside world. It has to do with how you say you believe and living in a way that demonstrates it.

Linda Poindexter:
Live your life in a way that you set a good example.

Linda Poindexter:
The greatest gift we have is access to humility.

Sally Poplin:
Some couples go over their budgets very carefully every month, other just go over them.

Dragana Popovic:
The problem with water is that it is wet.

Paulina Porizkova:
[about her marriage] We did get lucky to find the right person; having the brains to know that it's the right person; and to work on it and not let it fall apart when things aren't easy.

Irene Porter:
Just because everything's different doesn't mean anything's changed.

Emily Post:
A well-bred person always lives within the walls of his personal reserve; a vulgarian has no walls — or at least none that do not collapse at the slightest touch.

Emily Post:
A well-bred servant shows self-respect in a quiet manner, a low voice, and correct behavior, such as is exacted by a well-bred politeness everywhere.

Emily Post:
Every person, after all, has only one pair of hands, and a day has only so many hours.

Emily Post:
Introspective people who are fearful of others, fearful of themselves are never successfully popular hosts or hostesses.

Emily Post:
It must never be forgotten that a young child is inescapably imprisoned by the person in charge of it, and that sunlight is no more necessary to a plant than an atmosphere of sympathetic lightheartedness to a child.

Emily Post:
The atmosphere of hospitality is something very intangible, and yet nothing is more actually felt — or missed. There are certain houses that seem to radiate warmth like an open wood file; there are others that suggest an arrival at the North Pole.

Emily Post:
To be courteously polite, and yet keep one's walls up, is a thing every thoroughbred person knows how to do — and a thing that everyone who is trying to become such must learn to do.

Paula Poundstone:
Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up, because they're looking for ideas.

Paula Poundstone:
I don't have a bank account, because I don't know my mother's maiden name.

Elinko Pragnell:
All we have is this very moment. If we have a burning desire to change, there is always a way.

Elinko Pragnell:
Don't look at the problem. The more you look at problems, the more problems will come. Look for the solution.

Elinko Pragnell:
If you change your thinking, your life changes. But it's work.

Tammie Pross:
I like to dress the part, even if I don't know what I am doing.

Bonnie Prudden:
You can't turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Mary Quant:
Having money is rather like being a blond. It is more fun but not vital.

Jane Bryant Quinn:
The shortest period of time lies between the minute you put some money away for a rainy day and the unexpected arrival of rain.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Gilda Radner:
I base my fashion taste on what doesn't itch.

Gilda Radner:
I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.

Susan Raffy:
(Talking to her son) What time I go to bed has zippo to do with what time you go to bed.

Ayn Rand:
Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.

Ayn Rand:
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think.

Diana Rankin:
Instead of thinking about where you are, think about where you want to be. It takes twenty years of hard work to become an overnight success.

Stella Reading:
The whole point of getting things done is knowing what to leave undone

Maureen Reagan:
I will feel equality has arrived when we can elect to office women who are as incompetent as some of the men who are already there.

Nancy Reagan:
I believe that people would be alive today, if there were a death penalty.

Donna Reed:
There's one good thing about being a wife. You don't have be reelected every four years.

Erica Reischer:
When children fail at something (as inevitably we all will), the ones who don't recognize the significant role of random chance in determining life's outcomes may blame themselves or stop trying.

Agnes Repplier:
Humor distorts nothing, and only false gods are laughed off their pedestals.

Agnes Repplier:
The tourist may complain of other tourists, but he would be lost without them.

Regina Reynolds:
Work smarter, not harder: laziness is the mother of invention.

Regina Reynolds:
Subscribing to a serial [such as a magazine] is like getting married: it's a lifelong commitment.

Wynetka Reynolds:
Anyone who says you can't see a thought simply dosen't know art.

Adrienne Rich:
Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, and false namings of real events.

Adrienne Rich:
Lying is done with words and also with silence.

Adrienne Rich:
Only to have a grief equal to all these tears!

Sally Ride:
All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.

Francine Rivers:
One of life's greatest tragedies is watching a relationship unravel over something that could've been resolved in one intelligent, adult conversation.

Joan Rivers:
I have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them.

Joan Rivers:
I succeeded by saying what everyone else is thinking.

Joan Rivers:
I told my mother-in-law that my house was her house, and she said, "Get the hell off my property."

Joan Rivers:
If God wanted us to bend over, he'd put diamonds on the floor.

Joan Rivers:
There is not one female comic who was beautiful as a little girl.

Marnia Robinson:
America's experience with cigarettes and fast food suggests that humans are very good at researching and exploiting what excites the reward circuitry of the brain, and very bad at acknowledging the addictions that follow from single-minded focus on short-term satiation.

Marnia Robinson:
In biology, what goes up must come down as the body seeks to rebalance itself.

Marnia Robinson:
Neurochemical balance is far more desirable than the neurochemical excess.

Marnia Robinson:
Our distant ancestors didn't have these options for excess in the abundance we do today. Their lifestyles guaranteed a degree of balance we can no longer take for granted.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Always ask — because if you don't, it's a definite "no".

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Anytime you want to achieve a goal and you do the work, you will achieve the goal. I promise.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
As good as I am as a talker, I am a better listener.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Better late than never. (Unless you're on my team.)

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Distractions are important when you are being distracted by the people or things you love.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Don't give in to the mental weakness. Give in to the mental strength.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Don't let your mental weakness affect your physical strength.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Everyone needs someone to believe in them.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Failure doesn't mean that you're a failure.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Failure is not fatal. We need it to grow.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Feeling tired is just an emotion. You can change that emotion through exercise or other physical activity.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
I never say no to anyone who wants to sweat.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
If you are not working hard right now, it is because the mind is holding you back.
(Compare to Ann Landers)

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
I'd rather have a messy house that's full of people, than a pristine house and no visitors.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
I'm always a winner, even when I'm losing.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
I'm not saying I'm better than anybody. I just know what my mom taught me.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Isn't it great to do something that's difficult?

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
It's okay to work out without music, because then you are present with what you are doing.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Kindness is free. Give your kindness to those who matter.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Listen to me only. Do not listen to your peers.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Mediocrity is not what we're about.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Never be afraid to run a mile.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Nobody ever regretted getting in shape.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Sweating is smiling.
(Compare to Ann Landers)

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Technology works against us when it comes to intrinsic motivation.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
The body wants to move.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
The stronger you are, the happier you are.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
The track doesn't beat you. You beat the track.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
There are a thousand reasons to not exercise. You need to find the one reason to exercise.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
Today is a good day to have a good day.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
We are here to change the world through enabling people to fulfill their own greatest promise.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
When someone holds you accountable, you become better and stronger.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
When the body starts moving, the mind is capable of so much more. Remember that when you are feeling down or unhappy.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
When the mind says, "I'm tired," the body will follow. When the mind says, "I'm ready," the body will follow.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
When you are good to yourself, you are good to everyone else in your life.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
When you feel like you can't do something, but you keep doing it anyway, that is the best.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
When you have a job to do, you have to do your job.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
When you make a choice to try, you do. You have that choice.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
You can't fake being in shape.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
You get the most out of exercise at the end of your workout.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
You need the knowledge of what to do, not just the desire to do it.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
You'll be surprised what your body can do when your mind says "Try!"

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
You're body doesn't know it's Monday. Only your mind knows it's Monday.

Sandrine Rocher-Krul:
You're not tired, you just think you are.

Becky Rodenbeck:
Most men who are not married by the age of thirty-five are either homosexual or really smart.

Sally Rogers:
Those who feel good in the morning should have the courtesy not to impose it upon those who do not.

Wendy Rogers:
I don't know which is worse: to be me, or to sleep with me.

Eleanor Roosevelt:
Friendship with one's self is all important because, without it, one cannot be friends with anyone else in the world.

Eleanor Roosevelt:
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. Curiousity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

Eleanor Roosevelt:
I think, at a child's birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.

Eleanor Roosevelt:
It is not fair to ask of others what you are not willing to do yourself. You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.

Eleanor Roosevelt:
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
(Compare to Ann Landers)

Eleanor Roosevelt:
One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else.

Eleanor Roosevelt:
You always admire what you really don't understand.

Eleanor Roosevelt:
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.

Hanna Ross:
An exciting woman is always trouble. (See Hanna sing.))

Hanna Ross:
Don't waste too many big words on a pretty girl.

Hanna Ross:
The modern woman doesn't have time to be natural.

Geneen Roth:
Just because we live in an insane culture doesn't mean we have to be insane too.

Helen Rowland:
"Home" is any four walls that enclose the right person.

Helen Rowland:
A husband is what's left of the lover after the nerve has been extracted.

Helen Rowland:
Before a marriage, a man will lie awake all night thinking about something you've said; after marriage, he'll fall asleep before you finish saying it.

Helen Rowland:
Before marriage, a man will lay down his life for you; after marriage he won't even lay down his newspaper.

Helen Rowland:
Every man wants a woman to appeal to his better side, his nobler instincts, and his higher nature — and another woman to help him forget them.

Helen Rowland:
Never trust a husband too far or a bachelor too near.

Helen Rowland:
One man's folly is another man's wife.

Helen Rowland:
The follies which a man regrets the most in his life are those which he didn't commit when he had the opportunity.

Helen Rowland:
What a man calls his "conscience" is merely the mental action that follows a sentimental reaction after too much wine or love.

Helen Rowland:
When a girl marries, she exchanges the attentions of all the other men of her acquaintance for the inattention of just one.

Helen Rowland:
When you see what some women marry, you realize how they must hate to work for a living.

Helena Rubenstein:
There are no ugly women, only lazy ones.

Rita Rudner:
Before I met my husband I'd never fallen in love, though I'd stepped in it a few times.

Rita Rudner:
I got kicked out of ballet class because I pulled a groin muscle. It wasn't mine.

Rita Rudner:
I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.

Rita Rudner:
I think men who have a pierced ear are better prepared for marriage. They've experienced pain and bought jewelry.

Rita Rudner:
My mother buried three husbands— and two of them were only napping.

Rita Rudner:
Neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics live in them. My mother cleans them.

Rita Rudner:
Someday I want to be rich. Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That's how rich I want to be.

Rita Rudner:
To attract men, I wear a perfume called "New Car Interior".

Rita Rudner:
Whenever I date a guy, I think, is this the man I want my children to spend their weekends with?

Muriel Rukeyser:
The universe is made of stories, not of atoms.

Dora Russell:
We want far better reasons for having children than not knowing how to prevent them.

Diana Ryan:
Women have been doing men a disservice for a long time by not letting them be gentlemen.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Margaret Sackville:
When all is said and done, monotony may after all be the best condition for creation.

Francois Sagan:
Every little girl knows about love. It is only her capacity to suffer because of it that increases.

Donna Salter:
You don't have to use your brain as long as you have a GPS.

Patsy H. Sampson:
Human successes, like human failures, are composed of one action at a time and achieved by one person at a time.

Justine Sacco:
Just don't engage.

Alice San Andres-Calleja:
If you think of something good and beautiful, do it.

Alice San Andres-Calleja:
Life is too short to be perfect.

George Sand (Aurore Dupin):
There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.

Chantal Saperstein:
All marriages are mixed marriages.

May Sarton:
Women are at last becoming persons first and wives second, and that is as it should be.

Virginia Satir:
We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.

Louisa Saunders:
When relationships are reduced to bickering, it's usually because there are grievances that aren't getting a proper airing.

Zenna Schaffer:
Give a man a fish and he has food for a day; teach him how to fish and you can get rid of him for the entire weekend.

Jacqueline Schiff:
Kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.

Laura Schlessinger:
A lot of people do what we call neurotic things in order to repair their childhood.

Laura Schlessinger:
A lot of what children go through is because you adults don't carry the burden yourself.

Laura Schlessinger:
A lot of what children's hurt feelings are about is how the parents react.

Laura Schlessinger:
Arguing with a man doesn't work.

Laura Schlessinger:
As women go, so goes civilization.

Laura Schlessinger:
Behavior is a symptom. If you look at it like a problem, you're just going to make a judgment. If you look at like a symptom, you can do something about it.

Laura Schlessinger:
Boys are slobs... One reason is that mothers let them get away with it. Mothers are notorious for spoiling male children.

Laura Schlessinger:
Children have no reasonable assumption of privacy while they are minors in their parent's home.

Laura Schlessinger:
Controlling mothers do not pass the baton to their son's new wife.

Laura Schlessinger:
Decent responsible parents are a royal pain: that's how you know when you have them [such parents].

Laura Schlessinger:
Did you hear what I said? It was very profound.

Laura Schlessinger:
Do not blame God for your stupid decisions.

Laura Schlessinger:
Don't put your nose into somebody else's laundry, if you are not willing to fold your own.

Laura Schlessinger:
Don't talk over me, don't argue with me, just listen.

Laura Schlessinger:
Don't underestimate how fine you are.

Laura Schlessinger:
Don't waste my time: I'm not stupid, and I'm not gullible.

Laura Schlessinger:
Every man knows: you criticize a woman — that's it for sex for the next year.

Laura Schlessinger:
Everyone has the right to go on a vacation without kids if they want.

Laura Schlessinger:
Going into therapy doesn't guarantee poop on toast.

Laura Schlessinger:
Guys behave like they're naive, but they're not stupid. They know what's going on.

Laura Schlessinger:
Having a sense of purpose in life is the best way to avoid dispair.

Laura Schlessinger:
I know I'm right, and I know you're wrong.

Laura Schlessinger:
I haven't yelled at anybody today. It's been a slow day.

Laura Schlessinger:
[talking to a bulimic girl] I spent two yours of my life being anorexic, but I would never dream of throwing up — my God!

Laura Schlessinger:
I think I average one good sulk a week.

Laura Schlessinger:
If there's an award for best mother-in-law in the universe, in the future, when my son gets married, I will win that award.

Laura Schlessinger:
If you want a weak man, you might as well marry a woman.

Laura Schlessinger:
If your life is going to be dictated by what's comfortable, your life will stink.

Laura Schlessinger:
I'm so happy, I can hardly spit.

Laura Schlessinger:
I'm not good at debating — I'm much better at pontificating.

Laura Schlessinger:
I'm very fond of food. I get hungry, and I like to eat almost all the time.

Laura Schlessinger:
If someone has a boy who gets to age 18 without something [a bone] being fractured, that kid has been overly controlled.

Laura Schlessinger:
If you can't handle the baggage, you'll have to get out of the baggage room.

Laura Schlessinger:
If you think positively instead of negatively, you'll behave better and you'll feel better.

Laura Schlessinger:
In the history of humanity, women have never been as oppressed as they are right now. Men can make babies with us and then walk away.

Laura Schlessinger:
Isn't it nice to know that you can put a worm on your hook and get a fish all charged up?

Laura Schlessinger:
It doesn't matter how we were raised. We become the person we choose to be.

Laura Schlessinger:
It doesn't matter what you say [to me] after "even though". I never change my mind. Give it up.

Laura Schlessinger:
It's a tough world out there, and women can't afford to be weenies.

Laura Schlessinger:
It's not the worst thing in the world to look different from everyone else.

Laura Schlessinger:
Listen carefully, because I don't repeat myself — and if I do, I get testy.

Laura Schlessinger:
Make believe I'm right.

Laura Schlessinger:
Marriage is not just about love and living together. It's much more complicated, especially when you are going to be making a family.

Laura Schlessinger:
Men are very easy: You treat them well, and they behave right. You don't treat them well, and they don't behave right.

Laura Schlessinger:
Men are very easy to get along with: they just want to come home to something pleasant.

Laura Schlessinger:
Most people are weak and frightened, and run from anything which could be upsetting. Most people, also, are takers and not givers.

Laura Schlessinger:
My father was right. Unfortunately, he died before I could tell him.

Laura Schlessinger:
My way of thinking is better than yours.

Laura Schlessinger:
Nagging pays off.

Laura Schlessinger:
Never ask anyone if you should do something, if ultimately you are afraid to do it. You'll save yourself a lot of trouble.

Laura Schlessinger:
Never miss an opportunity to look like a nice guy.

Laura Schlessinger:
Never use God to hurt yourself.

Laura Schlessinger:
Nobody leaves a house where there is peace, joy and good sex.

Laura Schlessinger:
Nothing is irresistible. There is no feeling that is irresistible.

Laura Schlessinger:
Only good people feel guilt.

Laura Schlessinger:
Other people do not owe me their availability.

Laura Schlessinger:
People get mad at me very easily. The magnitude of your anger toward me is the measure of how much you know you are doing wrong.

Laura Schlessinger:
People who have "their own issues" often don't stand back and look at the big picture: they're too busy orchestrating their own issues.

Laura Schlessinger:
Probably more than half of the people who go into psychology do so because they need help. I think it's their way of feeling that they have control.

Laura Schlessinger:
Promises made out of ignorance should not be kept.

Laura Schlessinger:
Some women are like elephants. I don't mean size, I mean they never forget.

Laura Schlessinger:
Sometimes guys avoid things they don't know how to do well.

Laura Schlessinger:
Stop being a bitch, and you'll stop hearing that you're acting like a bitch.

Laura Schlessinger:
Stop saying "right" to me. I'm starting to feel hostile.

Laura Schlessinger:
That's your life. Get used to it. Don't get mad at me— you married him.

Laura Schlessinger:
The primary concern of the human animal is to avoid rejection and abandonment.
Laura Schlessinger:
The worst thing is the world is a defensive my-kid-can't-do-anything-wrong parent.

Laura Schlessinger:
There are so many responsible, nice, kind guys out there. Why marry a fixer-upper?

Laura Schlessinger:
There is no such thing in life as no pain and no disappointment.

Laura Schlessinger:
There is no unconditional love in the universe.

Laura Schlessinger:
There's no battered woman alive who didn't know in advance that the man was bad.

Laura Schlessinger:
There's no point dating a guy who can't support a family.

Laura Schlessinger:
There's no point feeling angry at a drunk.

Laura Schlessinger:
There's no point in arguing with me: in my mind, I'm always right.

Laura Schlessinger:
There's no reason to yell at anybody.

Laura Schlessinger:
There's nothing stupider than an unpaid whore.

Laura Schlessinger:
There's nothing wrong with blame, if blame is due.

Laura Schlessinger:
Too many people make the past their identity and spend the rest of their lives accumulating sympathy for their past pain.

Laura Schlessinger:
What do you think? Everything that has a penis that has sperm go through it is intelligent and mature?

Laura Schlessinger:
When a man marries he takes a bigger risk than the woman, because she can march out with his kids, his money, his home, and his dog.

Laura Schlessinger:
When we're hurting, it does not give us a license to hurt others.

Laura Schlessinger:
When you're around people, act like you like them.

Laura Schlessinger:
Why should a man say what he feels, when a women is going to ignore what he says?

Laura Schlessinger:
Women have to be controlled: we're just too emotional.

Laura Schlessinger:
Women who don't think they can get a neat guy hang onto losers because something is better than nothing.

Laura Schlessinger:
Would you stop hoping? Hope is just postponed disappointment.

Laura Schlessinger:
You can rescue a woman from a dragon — because you can go slay the dragon — but you can't rescue a woman from herself.

Laura Schlessinger:
You can't compete with other women by becoming a pain in the butt.

Laura Schlessinger:
You can't hug money.

Laura Schlessinger:
You can't marry boys and expect them to be men — and you can't massage them into being men.

Laura Schlessinger:
You don't need to make your heart and your head agree. Let your head make the decision — your heart will catch up eventually.

Laura Schlessinger:
You have the power. You are the magic wand.

Laura Schlessinger:
You'd be amazed at how much power women have over men — and the basic control is nagging... Men are very simple creatures, like puppies.

Laura Schlessinger:
Your mother doesn't own you. Your father doesn't own you. You own you.

Caroline Schoeder:
Some people change their ways when they see the light, others when they feel the heat.

Olive Schreiner:
There was never a great man who had not a great mother.

Mary Queen of Scots:
No more tears now; I will think about revenge.

Catherine Sedgwick:
A man can't be expected to do much with what you call home education.

Catherine Sedgwick:
The monster appetite was thus easily tamed. Its pleasures were felt to be inferior pleasures — to be enjoyed socially and gratefully, but forbearingly.

Catherine Sedgwick:
The physical, moral, and intellectual sail is ready; it only wants the spirit of cultivation.

Angela Serota:
Learning about the inner growth in ourselves is the most important part of life.

Dorothy Serrity:
We need to change so we can remain the same.

Madame de Sevigne:
I fear nothing so much as a man who is witty all day long.

Katie Seward:
Ice cream tastes better with a plastic spoon.

Anne Sexton:
It doesn't matter who my father was. It matters who I remember he was.

Anne Shaef:
Getting to the top isn't bad, and it's probably best done as an afterthought.

Laura Shapiro:
A woman's most impressive duty is to make her home a heaven in miniature, herself an angel ready at the end of each day to receive and revive the weary worker.

Laura Shapiro:
Domestic life is more easily understood as an extension of woman's existence, one of her natural adornments.

Laura Shapiro:
The best housekeeping is invisible, offering a smooth surface of cleanliness and harmony that covers up any trace of flurry, mishap, or sweat.

Helen Sharman:
There is very little difference between men and women in space.

Shelley [an "Ask Amy" reader]:
When faced with two equally valid paths, I choose both.

Barbara Sher:
You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you.

Margaret Sherwood:
In great moments life seems neither right nor wrong, but something greater, it seems inevitable.

Elisabeth Shue:
I may be the girl next door, but you wouldn't want to live next to me.

Simone Signoret:
Chains do not hold a marriage together. It is threads, hundreds of tiny threads which sew people together through the years. That is what makes a marriage last — more than passion or even sex!

Carol Siskind:
Jews don't go camping. Life is hard enough as it is.

Edith Sitwell:
Hot water is my native element. I was in it as a baby, and I have never seemed to get out of it ever since.

Edith Sitwell:
I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of goldfish.

Edith Sitwell:
I am one of those unhappy persons who inspire bores to the greatest flights of art.

Edith Sitwell:
I wish the government would put a tax on pianos for the incompetent.

Edith Sitwell:
My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music, and silence.

Lenore Skenazy :
A child who thinks he can't do anything on his own eventually can't.

Cornelia Otis Skinner:
Women's virtue is man's greatest invention.

Skyblossom [a Dear Wendy reader]:
Most of us fall in love at least once with someone with whom we could never be happy sharing a life. Then we learn to be pickier.

Skyblossom [a Dear Wendy reader]:
You don't have to stay with someone just because you love them. You need a relationship that works for both of you.

Grace Slick:
No matter how big or soft or warm your bed is, you still have to get out of it.

Ruth Smeltzer:
You have not lived a perfect day unless you have done something for someone who will never be able to repay you.

Hannah Whitall Smith:
The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not, and never persist in trying to set people right.

Liz Smith:
You can't build a reputation on what you intend to do.

Margaret Smith:
I don't visit my parents often because Delta Airlines won't wait in the yard while I run in.

Nancy Banks Smith:
Agatha Christie has given more pleasure in bed than any other woman.

Susan Sontag:
Any important disease whose causality is murky, and for which treatment is ineffectual, tends to be awash in significance.

Susan Sontag:
For those who live neither with religious consolations about death nor with a sense of death (or of anything else) as natural, death is the obscene mystery, the ultimate affront, the thing that cannot be controlled. It can only be denied.

Susan Sontag:
I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list.

Susan Sontag:
Industrial societies turn their citizens into image junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution. Poignant longings for beauty, for an end to probing below the surface, for a redemption and celebration of the body of the world. Ultimately, having an experience becomes identical with taking a photograph of it.

Susan Sontag:
Interpretation is the revenge of the intellectual upon art.

Susan Sontag:
Sanity is a cozy lie.

Susan Sontag:
The camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own.

Julia Sorel:
If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances.

Janet Sorensen:
I love my kids, but I wouldn't want them for friends.

Muriel Spark:
One should only see a psychiatrist out of boredom.

Britney Spears:
I think you should never put boundaries on yourself. You should always want to grow.

Elizabeth Spelk:
I don't place much faith in my intuitions, except as a starting place for designing experiments.

Elizabeth Spelk:
It's not about being right, it's about getting it right.

Elizabeth Spelk:
The job of the baby is to learn.

Barbara Stanwyck:
Career is too pompous a word. It was a job, and I have always felt privileged to be paid for what I love doing.

Gertrude Stein:
Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.

Gertrude Stein:
It takes a lot of time to be a genius. You have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.

Gertrude Stein:
When they are alone they want to be with others, and when they are with others they want to be alone. After all, human beings are like that.

Gloria Steinem:
A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.

Gloria Steinem:
Most American children suffer too much mother and too little father.

Gloria Steinem:
Most women's magazines simply try to mold women into bigger and better consumers.

Gloria Steinem:
The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.

Gloria Steinem:
We can tell our values by looking at our checkbook stubs.

Megan Stephan:
I'll be grateful when the back-and-forth chatter about whether our reading should make us feel guilty fades to a silence that allows me to hear the sound of pages turning.

Gladys Stern:
Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.

Abby Stewart:
[about premarital sex] I suppose it's like taking dope. Once you start...

Elizabeth Stone:
Making a decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.

Judith Stone:
In New York City, one suicide in ten is attributed to a lack of storage space.

Harriet Beecher Stowe:
The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.

Harriet Beecher Stowe:
Women are the real architects of society.

Abraham Lincoln:
(On meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin") So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war.

Ginger Strand:
It was as if some people forgot the most basic truths of being human: we are frail, imperfect, vulnerable creatures always in need of other humans for support.

Meryl Streep:
Instant gratification is not soon enough.

Meryl Streep:
You can't get spoiled if you do your own ironing.

Diana Streisand:
Don't count on anything good, because God will snatch it away.

Minna Stress
I have determination. Some people get hurt, and then they just stop because they don't like getting hurt. Getting hurt is the biggest part of skateboarding.

Muriel Strode:
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Annie Sullivan:
The truth is not wonderful enough to suit the newspapers; so they enlarge upon it, and invent ridiculous embellishments.

Annie Sullivan:
We all like stories that make us cry. It's so nice to feel sad when you've nothing in particular to feel sad about.

Audrey Sutherland:
The only real security is the ability to build your own fires and find your own peace.

Natalie Svyetalylo:
You can't run away from your destiny.

Alice Mackenzie Swaim:
Courage is not the towering oak that sees storms come and go; it is the fragile blossom that opens in the snow.

Gloria Swanson:
All creative people should be required to leave California for three months every year.

Madame Swetchine:
To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Amy Tan:
If you can't change your fate, change your attitude.

Elizabeth Taylor:
It's not the having, it's the getting.

Jane Taylor:
Self-denial is painful for a moment, but very agreeable in the end.

Sara Teasdale:
No one worth possessing can be quite possessed.

Ada Teixeira:
If your efforts are sometimes greeted with indifference, don't lose heart. The sun puts on a wonderful show at daybreak, yet most of the people in the audience go on sleeping.

Mother Teresa:
Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.

Mother Teresa:
Loneliness is the most terrible poverty.

Mother Teresa:
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.

Helen Terry:
What is a diary as a rule? A document useful to the person who keeps it. Dull to the contemporary who reads it and invaluable to the student, centuries afterwards, who treasures it.

Janet Tewley:
Nature is unfair to women. We flower with tragic brevity.

Josephine Tey:
Lack of education is an extraordinary handicap when one is being offensive.

Margaret Thatcher:
Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

Margaret Thatcher:
If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.

Margaret Thatcher:
No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he'd only had good intentions: he had money, too.

Margaret Thatcher:
People think that at the top there isn't much room. They tend to think of it as an Everest. My message is that there is tons of room at the top.

Margaret Thatcher:
Success is having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a sense of purpose.

Margaret Thatcher:
There can be no liberty unless there is economic liberty.

Margaret Thatcher:
You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.

Mary Dixon Thayer:
It is not what you give your friend, but what you are willing to give him that determines the quality of friendship.

TheLadyE [a Dear Wendy reader]:
We can put a man on the moon and grow seedless watermelon, but we can't control who we develop feelings for. What's up with that?

Angela Thirkell:
If one cannot invent a really convincing lie, it is often better to stick to the truth.

Pauline Thomason:
Love is blind — marriage is the eye-opener.

Dorothy Thompson:
Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.

Courtney Thorne-Smith:
If it's not working before you get married, marriage isn't going to fix it.

Lily Tomlin:
I have always wanted to be somebody, but I see now I should have been more specific.

Lily Tomlin:
The problem with the rat race is that, even if you win, you're still a rat.

Lily Tomlin:
Why is it when we talk to God we're said to be praying, but when God talks to us we're schizophrenic?

Diana Trilling:
I learned early in life that to laugh before breakfast was to cry before dinner.

Diana Trilling:
I regard the whole of my life as having been lived in an anxious world.

Diana Trilling:
Surely going to bed with a man before marriage was the most courageous act of my life.

Diana Trilling:
They were not easy companions, these intellectuals. They were overbearing and arrogant, excessively competitive; they lacked magnanimity and often they lacked common courtesy. Ours was a cruelly judgmental society, often malicious and riddled with envy.

Una Troubridge:
A girl can't analyze marriage, and a woman dare not.

Marina Tsvetaeva:
No one has stepped twice into the same river, but did anyone ever step twice into the same book?

Barbara Tuchman:
War is the unfolding of miscalculations.

Sophie Tucker:
From birth to age 18, a girl needs good parents. From 18 to 35, she needs good looks. From 35 to 55 she needs a good personality. And from 55 on, she needs cash.

Sophie Tucker:
I've been rich and I've been poor. Rich is better.

Sherry Turkle:
If we don't know how to be alone, we'll only know how to be lonely.

Sherry Turkle:
Multitasking comes with its own high, but when we chase after this feeling, we pursue an illusion.

Sherry Turkle:
Our phones are psychologically potent devices that change, not just what we do, but who we are.

Sherry Turkle:
We turn time alone into a problem that needs to be solved with technology.

Maraget Turnbull:
No man is responsible for his father. That was entirely his mother's affair.

Margaret Turnbull:
When a man meets catastrophe on the road, he looks in his purse, but a woman looks in her mirror.

Lana Turner:
A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Mo Udall:
Any change or reform you make is going to have consequence you don't like.

Ernestine Ulmer:
Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.

Laurel Ulrich:
Well-behaved women rarely make history.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Brandi Valenza:
Free is good.

Brandi Valenza:
If everything were different, nothing would be the same.

Patricia Vance:
Do you want to trace your family tree? Run for public office.

Amy Vanderbilt:
Do not speak of repulsive matters at table.

Amy Vanderbilt:
The modern rule is that every woman should be her own chaperon.

Stephanie Vanderkellen:
If you don't show up at a party, people will assume you're fat.

Daniele Vare:
Diplomacy is the art of letting someone have your way.

Susan Vass:
I've been married so long, I am on my third bottle of Tabasco sauce.

Beatrice Vievard:
After the exercise, just before the final stretch, comes the perfect time of smiling.

Beatrice Vievard:
Once you're strong, you're strong. What's hard is to get stronger.

Shulanda Veira:
When you are young, you want to be like everybody else. But when you get older, there's nothing you want to do more than be different, a unique individual.

Queen Victoria:
I feel sure that no girl would go to the altar if she knew all.

Queen Victoria:
The Queen is most anxious to enlist everyone in checking this mad, wicked folly of "Women's Rights". It is a subject which makes the Queen so furious that she cannot contain herself.

Pamela Voge:
A sexy brain could well be the most important asset a man can bring to a relationship. [see Kurt Vonnegut]

Pamela Voge:
I can live anyone else's life, it is my own with which I have trouble.

Pamela Voge:
I don't have a good solution to everything, but I can feed you and get you water.

Pamela Voge:
I just know that if money is my only problem, I don't have any problems.

Pamela Voge:
If I can get through life, I can get through anything.

Pamela Voge:
If I could have my way, I would not be any trouble at all.

Pamela Voge:
If you choose your woman wisely, you will never go hungry.

Pamela Voge:
If you stop and think about it, you know that you can't drive a car well and talk on the phone at the same time. The trick is to stop and think about it.

Pamela Voge:
It is sad when the past steals our present.

Pamela Voge:
It seems that the only time in my life when I have worked for anyone who had any common sense is when I was self-employed.

Pamela Voge:
Life is not easy if you live it well.

Pamela Voge:
Never pass up an opportunity to eat.

Pamela Voge:
One of the reasons so many people believe they are forgetful is they are trying to absorb too much information at the same time. For example, they do not focus when someone tells them something so, later, they forget it.

Pamela Voge:
Sometimes you have to do things to figure out you don't want to do them.

Pamela Voge:
The reason driving requires so much uninterrupted concentration is that it is different every time we do it.

Pamela Voge:
The sequoia is the tree that all other trees aspire to be.

Pamela Voge:
The way to use your brain to maximum capacity is to focus on one thing at a time.

Pamela Voge:
We're not talking about reality — we're talking about how I feel.

Pamela Voge:
When a baby nurses, it does more than just drink milk. It sucks the brain cells right out of your head.

Pamela Voge:
You can tell how long you've been married by the age of your Tupperware.

Pamela Voge:
You know you have real love when things are difficult and you run to each other, not away from each other.

Pamela Voge:
You're already in the right place. You just have to make the right decisions.

Mary Heaton Vorse:
The art of writing is the art of applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair.

• A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Jane Wagner:
A sobering thought: what if, at this very moment, I am living up to my full potential?

Jane Wagner:
I personally think we developed language because of our deep inner need to complain.

Jane Wagner:
Our ability to delude ourselves may be an important survival tool.

Alice Walker:
Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on Earth is it for.

Alice Walker:
No person is your friend who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow.

Alice Walker:
The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any.

Lydonna Walker:
You need to ride the horse when it's alive, not beat it when it's dead.

Michelle Walker:
If you think you're too small to make a difference, you've obviously never been in bed with a mosquito.

Barbara Walters:
Success can make you go one of two ways. It can make you a prima donna, or it can smooth the edges, take away the insecurities, let the nice things come out.

Barbara Walters:
To some extent, you are what you talk about: when you talk about being sick, you feel sicker.

Carolyn Warner:
Years ago fairy tales all began with "Once upon a time...", now we know they all begin with, "If I am elected..."

Christi Warner:
A friend is one who knows all about you and likes you anyway.

Martha Washington:
I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.

Faye Wattleton:
The only safe ship in a storm is leadership.

June Wayne:
The arts are the rain forests of society. They produce the oxygen of freedom, and they are the early warning system when freedom is in danger.

Cathy Weatherford:
What you teach your own children is what you really believe in.

Mary Webb:
If you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your path.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
Being a parent is hard work. It's much, much harder than being someone's boyfriend or girlfriend.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
Despite having family and friends and a community, we still travel this world alone; there's not one person who will be with you through everything.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
Despite what a lot of pop songs tell us, love isn't supposed to make you feel like crap.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
Don't sleep with someone who provides an essential service to you that would be difficult to replace.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
Finding someone who loves us for who we are on the inside is what everyone hopes for, but there's nothing wrong with polishing your outside a little so people have more incentive to discover who you are. Attract 'em with your outside so they can fall in love with the inside.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
Guys are going to be rude because they can.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
Guys can love one chick and still want to screw every other girl. It's called being alive.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
However much closer modern technology may bring us, it's not the same as being in each other's presence.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
If there are little things nagging you about someone, that's usually a sign there are bigger things bothering you that you haven't yet articulated.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
If you want a true representation of humanity and how others feel about you, turn off your computer and talk to real people.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
Intimacy is certainly important in a relationship, but when it's strictly physical, it's false intimacy. Real intimacy comes from sharing your feelings, sharing experiences, and showing your vulnerabilities.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
Marriage takes lots and lots of open communication. If you can't discuss your concerns for fear of being judged or offending your betrothed, things won't be any better once you're legally bound to each other.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
Moving your body is a quick and easy way to improve your mood and change your perspective.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
One of the hallmarks of a healthy relationship and a good match is a willingness to make sacrifices for the person you love.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
Parenthood is nothing if not a very long exercise in sacrifice.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
People say things all the time they don't really mean or haven't thought out clearly.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
People who have a PhD are just like you and me, except they have a lot more debt.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
The universe certainly isn't punishing you, because the universe isn't forcing you to stay in a shitty relationship with a shitty partner. You're doing that to yourself.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
There are plenty of people in this world who will take advantage of you as long as you let them. Some of those people can even disguise themselves as your very best friend.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
There's not a whole lot of incentive for a guy who just wants to get laid to stick around or be polite after he gets what he wants. Accept the rules or stop playing the game.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
This is your life and there is no script.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
We all have imaginary lights above our heads that indicate to people whether we're on the market or not. Those lights run on energy, which we generate by smiling, being friendly, dressing well, and flirting.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
We all say and do things that hurt the people we love.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
You both laid your cards on the table, and your hands don't match.

Dear Wendy (Wendy Atterberry):
You can't help the way you feel about something, but you most certainly can help the way it affects your behavior and the way you treat people.

Barbara Weeks:
Happiness is being married to your best friend.

Simone Weil:
All sins are attempts to fill voids.

Simone Weil:
Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life.

Simone Weil:
Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention.

Simone Weil:
To be a hero or a heroine, one must give an order to oneself.

Sara Weintraub:
[from Boston, age 90 at the time] If I had everything to do over again, I would care 20 percent less.

Anita Weiss:
I moved to New York City for my health. I'm paranoid and New York was the only place where my fears were justified.

Lina Wertmuller:
You should always carry a gun. Not to shoot yourself, but to know that you're always making a choice.

Jessamyn West:
It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.

Jessamyn West:
Memory is a magnet. It will pull to it and hold only material nature has designed it to attract.

Jessamyn West:
We want the facts to fit the preconceptions. When they don't, it is easier to ignore the facts than to change the preconceptions.

Mae West:
I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it.

Mae West:
I feel like a million tonight — but one at a time.

Mae West:
I generally avoid temptation, unless I can't resist it.

Mae West:
I go for two kinds of men:the kind with muscles, and the kind without.

Mae West:
I wrote the story myself. It's about a girl who lost her reputation and never missed it.

Mae West:
It is better to be looked over than overlooked.

Mae West:
It's hard to be funny when you have to be clean.

Mae West:
It's not the men in my life that count, it's the life in my men.

Mae West:
Keep a diary, and someday it'll keep you.

Mae West:
Loves conquers all things except poverty and toothache.

Mae West:
Say what you want about long dresses, but they cover a multitude of shins.

Mae West:
To err is human, but is feels divine.

Mae West:
Virtue has its own reward, but no box office.

Mae West:
When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before.

Mae West:
When women go wrong, men go right after them.

Meredith West:
If you want to stand out, don't be different, be outstanding.

Rebecca West:
Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience.

Rebecca West:
Before a war, military science seems a real science, like astronomy. After a war it seems more like astrology.

Rebecca West:
God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.

Rebecca West:
He is every other inch a gentleman.

Rebecca West:
People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.

Rebecca West:
There was a definite process by which one made people into friends, and it involved talking to them and listening to them for hours at a time.

Vivienne Westwood:
It is not possible for a man to be elegant without a touch of femininity.

Edith Wharton:
If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time.

Edith Wharton:
Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.

Edith Wharton:
There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or to be the mirror that reflects it.

Margaret Wheatley:
The things we fear most in organizations — fluctuations, disturbances, imbalances — are the primary sources of creativity.

Cynthia White:
Most art receptions are judged by the food, not by the speakers.

Lynn White:
We live in an era when rapid change breeds fear, and fear too often congeals us into a rigidity which we mistake for stability.

Katharine Whitehorn:
A food is not necessarily essential just because your child hates it.

Katharine Whitehorn:
A good listener is not someone with nothing to say. A good listener is a good talker with a sore throat.

Katharine Whitehorn:
Have you ever taken something out of the clothes hamper because it had become, relatively, the cleanest thing?

Katharine Whitehorn:
No nice men are good at getting taxis.

Katharine Whitehorn:
The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any.

Katharine Whitehorn:
Why do born-again people so often make you wish they'd never been born the first time?

Faith Whittlesey:
Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels.

Anna Wickham:
It is well within the order of things that man should listen when his mate sings; but the true male never yet walked who liked to listen when his mate talked.

Suzan Wiener:
Often the best thing about not saying anything is that it can't be repeated.

Colleen Wilcox:
Teaching is the greatest act of optimism.

Bula Williams [Esther Williams' mother]:
All things work together for good.
(Compare this to the observation by Aristotle: "Every action and pursuit is thought to aim at some good. For that reason, the good has rightly been declared to be that at which all things aim.")
Bula Williams [Esther Williams' mother]:
Every age has its compensations.

Bula Williams [Esther Williams' mother]:
If a man wants to give you something and you don't accept it, he'll find a way to give it to you, one way or another.

Bula Williams [Esther Williams' mother]:
You don't have to be the same from one decade to another. You get to evolve. You've got a few wrinkles, but as your body changes, everything changes. You're not only smarter, you're wiser.

Esther Williams:
I often wondered how women like Bette Davis and myself, who rose to the top of our professions and were so successful in our public lives, could have such disastrous private lives.

JoBeth Williams:
You can't go through life without your heart being bruised or broken. Otherwise, you're not truly, fully, a person.

Oprah Winfrey:
You can have it all. You just can't have it all at one time.

Liz Winston:
I rely on my personality for birth control.

Liz Winston:
I think, therefore I'm single.

Liz Winston:
When mom found my diaphram, I told her it was a bathing cap for my cat.

Shelley Winters:
All marriages are happy. It's trying to live together afterwards that causes all the problems.

Laurie Jo Wojcik:
Daughters go into analysis hating their fathers and come out hating their mothers. They never come out hating themselves.

Harriet Woods:
You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victems.

Virginia Woolf:
Each has his past shut in him like the leaves of a book known to him by his heart, and his friends can only read the title.

Virginia Woolf:
Humor is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue.

Virginia Woolf:
I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

Virginia Woolf:
If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure — the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men.

Virginia Woolf:
If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people.

Virginia Woolf:
Literature is strewn with the wreckage of men who have minded beyond reason the opinions of others.

Virginia Woolf:
The first duty of a lecturer: to hand you after an hour's discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks, and keep on the mantlepiece forever.

Virginia Woolf:
The older one grows, the more one likes indecency.

Virginia Woolf:
To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves.

Beverly Wright:
Be sure to dip the biscuit while the gravy's warm.

Kristi Wrightson:
You need to be fully committed to the habit you want to create.

Claudia Young:
If age imparted wisdom, there wouldn't be any old fools.

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Quotable Women is maintained by Harley Hahn.

"All male writers – no matter how broke or otherwise objectionable – have pretty wives. Somebody should look into this." [a clue]

— Kurt Vonnegut

Quotable Women An Archive ofMemorable Quotes by Women

Quotable Women
An Archive of
Memorable Quotes by Women