Women have always been the strong ones of the world. The men are always seeking from women a little pillow to put their heads down on. They are always longing for the mother who held them as infants.

I don’t know why women want any of the things men have when one of the things that women have is men

“A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life.”

“I don’t understand how a woman can leave the house without fixing herself up a little—if only out of politeness. And then, you never know, maybe that’s the day she has a date with destiny. And it’s best to be as pretty as possible for destiny.”

“All men are children, and if you understand that, a woman understands everything.”

“Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.”

“Women have a thirst for order and beauty as for something physical; there is a strange female power of hating ugliness and waste as good men can only hate sin and bad men virtue.”

“A good man’s work is effected by doing what he does, a woman’s by being what she is.”

“Women are the only realists; their whole object in life is to pit their realism against the extravagant, excessive, and occasionally drunken idealism of men.” 

Modern paintings are like women, you'll never enjoy them if you try to understand them.

What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What’s the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood?

For men, I think, love is a thing formed of equal parts lust and astonishment. The astonishment part women understand. The lust part they only think they understand.

A beautiful woman delights the eye; a wise woman, the understanding; a pure one, the soul.

No matter how plain a woman may be, if truth and honesty are written across her face, she will be beautiful.

Taking joy in living is a woman’s best cosmetic.

Women marry men hoping they will change. Men marry women hoping they will not. So each is inevitably disappointed.

A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful.

Girls aren’t beautiful, they’re pretty. Beautiful is too heavy a word to assign to a girl. Women are beautiful because their faces show that they know, they have lost something and picked up something else.

I love the women's movement, and I never thought of it as belonging to any particular segment of the population.

I made my first white women friends in college; they loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered.

I advocate that every woman be a part of a circle, and a circle that meets at least once a month, or if you can't do that, once every two months or every four months.

Part of our tradition as black women is that we are universalists. Black children, yellow children, red children, brown children, that is the black woman's normal, day-to-day relationship. In my family alone, we are about four different colors.

Women have to summon up courage to fulfill dormant dreams.

Women have to be extremely careful about choosing something that they consider an act of defiance that can really be used to further their enslavement.