Rita mae brown quotes

I believe all literature started as gossip.

Normal is the average of deviance.

Life is too short to be miserable.

Two wrongs don't make a right. No, but three will get you back on the freeway!

What happens to children and families today who sit around the television? They're watching made-up stories. It's not their experience and it's not truly shared. A human being must learn at a very young age how to connect to other human beings. Our technologies are driving us apart, only connecting us in terms of information, not in terms of emotions.

In America the word revolutionary is used to sell pantyhose.

Humor comes from self-confidence.

Some people live life and others talk about it.

We have the ability to be the Athens of modern times as opposed to the militaristic Sparta. I remind you that the Athenians wrote poetry. The Spartans did not.

I used to think romantic love was a neurosis shared by two, a supreme foolishness. I no longer think that. There's nothing foolish in loving anyone. Thinking you'll be loved in return is what's foolish.

Writers will happen in the best of families.

I do think women avoid power. Power assumes responsibility and accountability, and I think many, many women want to have it both ways.

I have finally figured out that the purpose of life is to enjoy it.

Morals are private. Decency is public.

In America sex is an obsession. In Europe it's a fact of life.

If you don't like my book, write your own.

The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself.

The writer's job is not to write a novel, hold it up and say, “Here I am,” but to write a novel, hold it up and say, “Here YOU are.

whoever said progress was a positive thing has never been to Florida or California.

It's a big jump from smart to motherwit.

I had to learn the image is not the word, which is a jolt for a literary soul. But it has served me well in terms of understanding plot, in terms of watching actors develop characters.

Pain isn't always the enemy.

A peacefulness follows any decision, even the wrong one.

I believe our concept of romantic love is irrational, impossible to fulfill and the cause of many broken homes. No human being can maintain that rarefied atmosphere of 'true love'.

When God made man she was practicing.

If you don't like my book, write your own. If you don't think you can write a novel, that ought to tell you something. If you think you can, do. No excuses. If you still don't like my novel, find a book you do like. Life is too short to be miserable. If you do like my novels, I commend your good taste.

There hasn't been a day in my life since I started Latin in ninth grade that I haven't benefited by the lives of the ancients.

Seriousness is the refuge of the shallow. There are events and personal experiences that call forth seriousness but they are fewer than most of us think.

Pornography exists for the lonesome, the ugly, the fearful - it's made for the losers.

friendship is love made bearable.

Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television.

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.

Writers are the moral purifiers of the culture. We may not be pure ourselves but we must tell the truth, which is a purifying act.

I love literature, the English language and storytelling. I also have thirty horses and seventy foxhounds to feed.

About all you can do in life is be who you are.

Computer dating is fine, if you're a computer.

The owner of Mojo's was a suicide blonde, dyed by her own hand.

The process of writing, any form of creativity, is a power intensifying life.

People who care for you inevitably become beautiful.

Every day you're alive and someone loves you is a miracle.

You're nothing in America if you don't have debt.

Education is a wonderful thing. If you couldn't sign your name you'd have to pay cash.

What's the point of prolonging your life if you don't enjoy it? It's your body. Do whatever you want with it. Better to wear out than rust over.

Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.

I always feel bad for those who, in a sense, cede their authority to others, let others make major decisions about their life and actually believe them. When you're tiny, you have no choice. But as soon as your mind starts working, you pretty well figure it out. And you realize you're a hostage until you're old enough to leave. But as long as you have that goal - I will get out of here - you'll be OK.

When I got [my] library card, that was when my life began.

Women need to feel loved and men need to feel needed.

Leroy bet me I couldn't find a pot of gold at the end, and I told him that was a stupid bet because the rainbow was enough.

For you to be successful, sacrifices must be made. It's better that they are made by others but failing that, you'll have to make them yourself.

I believe in a lively disrespect for most forms of authority.

Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.

People are like tea bags; you never know how strong they'll be until they're in hot water. In times of trouble, you not only discover what you truly believe but whether or not you can act on your beliefs.

As a woman, I find it very embarrassing to be in a meeting and realize I'm the only one in the room with balls.

I don't believe in straight or gay. I really don't. I think we're all degrees of bisexual.

Loving's pretty easy. It's letting someone love you that's hard.

The human animal varies from class to class, culture to culture. In one way we are consistent: We are irrational.

Class is much more than Marx's definition of relationship to the means of production. Class involved your behavior, your basic assumptions, how you are taught to behave, what you expect from yourself and from others, your concept of a future, how you understand problems and solve them, how you think, feel, act.

I've got splinters in my nose from the best publishing doors in town.

Whenever I doubt the existence of God or the Goddess, I look at horses. Only God could have made a horse.

Nothing is unnatural - just untried.

A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it's better than no inspiration at all.

No animal on the face of the earth could conceive of taxation. You and I work roughly six months a year to pay our local, state and federal taxes. If nothing else, this should convince you that animals are smarter than people.

I don't think there is a 'gay lifestyle.' I think that's superficial crap, all that talk about gay culture. A couple of restaurants on Castro Street and a couple of magazines do not constitute culture. Michelangelo is culture. Virginia Woolf is culture. So let's don't confuse our terms. Wearing earrings is not culture.

I'm not a person who worries too much about what I've done.

While cats can be infuriating, little old women in fur coats, they make me laugh. Of course, dogs, horses and my highly social chickens are dear to me, too.

Youth moves out, leaving no forwarding address. No matter how you try, you can't reach that person again or that place.

He unzipped his pants and his brains fell out.

I think gay people are like blondes: There're fewer of them but they have more fun.

Mother believed in enjoying herself. Aunt Mimi believed in enjoying herself, then feeling guilty about it.

Sorrow is how we learn to love. Your heart isn't breaking. It hurts because it's getting larger. The larger it gets, the more love it holds.

If the world were a logical place, men would ride side saddle.

Show me a writer, any writer, who hasn't suffered and I'll show you someone who writes in pastels as opposed to primary colors.

I believe you are your work. Don't trade the stuff of your life, time, for nothing more than dollars. That's a rotten bargain.

Virginia Woolf said that writers must be androgynous. I'll go a step further. You must be bisexual.

Don't ask to live in tranquil times. Literature doesn't grow there.

If you can't raise consciousness, at least raise hell.

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.

Cats and dogs believe politicians are like cemetery caregivers; they are on top of everyone, but nobody listens.

Recognition of function always precedes recognition of being.

Golf is an expensive way to make yourself miserable.

Love is the wild card of existence.

One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.

...funny how people want a return to the good ole days. Of coarse the good ole days of being a rich white plantation owner. Everyone seems to forget the poor white farmer.

One survey found that ten percent of Americans thought Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

Life is unjust, people can be cruel, and yet if you harden your heart, you will lose what little love there is in this world.

Gambling operates under the premise that greed can be satisfied by luck.

A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.

I have changed my definition of tragedy. I now think tragedy is not foul deeds done to a person (usually noble in some manner) but rather that tragedy is irresolvable conflict.

I mean, what do people talk about when they're married?" "Their kids, I guess." "Maybe that's all they have in common.

I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.

I no longer idolize reason. I have come to accept that ninety percent of what we do is irrational and that we spend what little rational thought we have in justifying our irrationality.

I can only say I wish I had slept with everyone I am accused of.

Dean: Don't you find that somewhat of an aberration? Doesn't this disturb you my dear? After all, it's not normal. Molly: I know it's not normal for people in this world to be happy, and I'm happy.

Unfortunately, Susan didn't remember what Jane Fulton once said, 'Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.

Put your money in your head, that way no one can take it from you.

My lesbianism is an act of Christian charity. All those women out there praying for a man, and I'm giving them my share.

I still miss those I loved who are no longer with me but I find I am grateful for having loved them. The gratitude has finally conquered the loss.

No government has the right to tell its citizens when or whom to love

Language exerts hidden power, like the moon on the tides.

Why can't peace be a single overriding common purpose: why do we wait for a crisis to pull us together? Let's pull together for peace.

If you're afraid to die, you're afraid to live. You can't have one without the other.

Femininity and masculinity are social constructs. Female and male are biological. We don't have to learn to be men or women but we do have to learn to be ladies and gentlemen.

When Mother died I was both freed and abandoned, as are we all at this profound juncture in our lives.

So often the truth is told with hate, and lies are told with love.

If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

The price of dishonesty is self-destruction.

To have meaningful work is a tremendous happiness.

All creatures tread across the rubble of ruined civilizations. The trick is to keep moving. No animal ever goes about dispensing shallow compassion.

Whoever heard of a neurotic frog? Where do humans get off thinking they're the pinnacle of evolution?

I'm beginning to feel that the real endangered species on planet earth are not the whales and the elephants but those of us who can laugh at the world and ourselves. ... I fear the dry turn of the American mind, this focus on the literal, as much as I fear our capacity for self-destruction. We've become hagridden by facts, obsessed with product instead of process. Where's the energetic wit, the looney outlook, the frivolity, the lightness of comforting laughter? It has become fashionable to know and unfashionable to feel, and you can't really laugh if you can't feel.

Don't hope more than you're willing to work.

Life matters more than any painting, novel, film, or great big diamond.

About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won't like you at all.

Women who love women are Lesbians. Men, because they can only think of women in sexual terms, define Lesbian as sex between women.

Divorce is the one human tragedy that reduces everything to cash.

I think you can judge the level of success for any group of people by the reaction against it.

Any woman whose I.Q. hovers above her body temperature must be a feminist.

Mothers have a habit of proving right except you don't find that out until you're the age your mother was when she gave you the advice.

Oppression works in such a way that it holds every person responsible for the acts of any wrongdoer of the oppressed group.

I believe the true function of age is memory. I'm recording as fast as I can.

So much of life is happenstance. It makes me laugh when I go to a bookstore and see all those titles about controlling your life. You're lucky if you can control your bladder.

Happiness is pretty simple: someone to love, something to do, something to look forward to.

Mother love is the most powerful, the most irrational force on earth, even more powerful than sexual love. However, one does lead to the other, so best not to spurn the former.

Self-pity is the simplest luxury.

One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.