Category: women

Quotable Women (and Men): Installment Five

  • “Inside me lives a skinny woman crying to get out, but I can usually shut her up with cookies.” – Anonymous
  • “Strength is the capacity to break a chocolate bar into four pieces with your bare hands – and eat just one of the pieces.” – Judith Viorst
  • “Behind every successful woman…is a substantial amount of coffee.” – Stephanie Piro
  • “If you always do what interests you, at least one person is pleased.” – Katharine Hepburn
  • “A beautiful woman seductively dressed will never catch cold no matter how low cut her gown.” – Fredrich Nietzsche
  • “A dress makes no sense unless it inspires men to want to take it off you.” – Francoise Sagan
  • “It’s not really a shorter skirt, I just have longer legs…” – Anna Kournikova
  • “You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yet without having asked any clear question.” – Alberta Camus

Quotable Women (and Two Men): Installment Four

  • “Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another, ‘What! You too? Thought I was the only one.'” – C.S. Lewis
  • “True friends are those who really know you but love you anyway.” – Edna Buchanan
  • “It’s the friends you can call up at four A.M. that matter.” – Marlene Dietrich
  • “I always feel that the great high privilege, relief, and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing.” – Katherine Mansfield
  • “I felt it shelter to speak to you.” – Emily Dickinson
  • “A friend will tuck the tab back into your collar.” – Anonymous
  • “Some of the most rewarding and beautiful moments of a friendship happen in the unforeseen open spaces between planned activities. It is important that you allow these spaces to exist.” – Christine Leefeldt
  • “A true friend never gets in your way unless you happen to be going down.” – Arnold H. Glasgow

Quotable Women: Installment Three

  • “I am what is mine. Personality is the original personal property.” – Norman O. Brown
  • “Okay, so God made man first, but doesn’t everyone make a rough draft before they make a masterpiece?” – Courtney Huston
  • “Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart.” – Erma Bombeck
  • “How happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nice man who wishes she were not. ” – H.L. Mencken
  • “There are no good girls gone wrong, just bad girls found out.” – Mae West
  • “To keep your character intact, you cannot stoop to filthy acts. It makes it easier to stoop the next time.” – Katharine Hepburn
  • “I’m extraordinarily patient provided I get my own way in the end.” – Margaret Thatcher

Quotable Women: Installment Two

To follow-up on last month’s post of memorable quotations taken from my page-a-day calendar (which thus far has an overrepresentation of thoughts from Marilyn Monroe and Coco Chanel), here are a few more gems:

  • “If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?” – Anonymous
  • “When women go wrong, men go right after them.” – Mae West
  • “People shop for a bathing suit with more care than they do for a husband or a wife. The rules are the same. Look for something you’ll feel comfortable wearing. Allow room for growth.” – Erma Bombeck
  • “Perhaps all human progress stems from the tension between two basic drives: to have just what everyone else has and to have what no one has.” – Judith Stone

And though I don’t want to disrespect the sentiment of International Women’s Day, I found it too ironic that of all days, I came across this definition in this month’s Alberta Venture magazine today:

  • glass cliff – an important project or senior job given to a woman with a high risk of failure (cf. glass ceiling, e.g. Rona Ambrose)

Quotable Women

Annie bought me a lovely page-a-day calendar for Christmas, filled with empowering, witty and feminist quotes from women through the ages. A few of my favorite gems so far this year:

  • “You see a lot of smart guys with dumb women, but you hardly ever see a smart woman with a dumb guy.” – Erica Jong
  • “I think – therefore I’m single.” – Lizz Winstead
  • “‘Stay’ is a charming word in a girlfriend’s vocabulary.” – Louisa May Alcott
  • “A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous.” – Ingrid Bergman
And one more – gleaned from the “Telescope” section of the Edmonton Journal‘s “Sunday Reader” that’s too good to forget:

  • “I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“My dignity as a woman”

Have any of you been following the Berlusconi saga? It’s a great illustration of the power of a woman’s voice, and the inherent respect self-dignity demands.

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has been forced to publicly apologize to his wife after two suggestive remarks about other women. He was quoted as saying, “I’d go with you anywhere,” to a dancer, and on a separate occasion about a parliamentary colleague, “Take a look at her! I’d marry her if I weren’t married already.”

To counter this humiliation, his wife, Vernoica Lavio, approached a national newspaper to print a letter, excerpted below:

“I have faced the inevitable contrasts and the more painful moments that a long conjugal relationship entails with respect and discretion. Now I write to state my reaction.

“This line of conduct has a sole limit, my dignity as a woman. Today for my female children, already adults, the example of a woman capable of defending her own dignity in her relationships with men takes on a particularly significant importance. . . . [For my son, it will serve as a lesson] to never forget to keep among his fundamental values respect for women. . . .

“I ask if, like the Catherine Dunne character, I have to regard myself as ‘half of nothing?’ . . . To my husband and to the public man I therefore ask for a public apology, having not received one privately. . . .Cordially, Veronica Berlusconi”

I’m not sure if I would feel comfortable airing out such dirty laundry in public, but I applaud and respect her decision to do so. Silvio’s response, on the other hand, reads somewhat trite, and seems much too light-hearted in tone to be genuine:

“Here I am, saying I’m sorry. I was recalcitrant in private, because I am playful but proud too. Challenged in public, the temptation to give in to you is strong. I can’t resist. . . .

“You know that my days are crazy: Work, politics, problems, moving around constantly and always being under public scrutiny . . . all of this opens up the possibility of a bit of irresponsibility that can be playful, ironic toward myself, and often irreverent. But your dignity has nothing to do with this — I cherish it as something precious in my heart even when my mouth emits the thoughtless quip, the gallant remark, the trifling comment of the moment.

“But, believe me, I have never made a marriage proposal to anyone. So, I beg you, forgive me and accept this public display of a private pride that gives in to your rage as an act of love — just one of many. A big kiss. Silvio”

The natural comparison for this situation is Hilary Clinton’s own decision to stand by her philandering husband after much more than oral comments. I can’t think that HRC would have even considered such a move (and if not only to allow for her own future political ambitions). I can only imagine the backlash she would have received from traditionalist and conservative women’s and family groups who would have criticized her for such a public demand. Moreover, though my knowledge of the female Italian mindset is slim, the tone of the article seems to suggest a pre-existing bias against Berlusconi. Perhaps Bill’s charisma and charm would have encouraged the retention of some female supporters?

In any case, I will be following this story now!