Marilyn French Quotes - Page 2

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Habit is a good thing for the human race. ... You have to spend so much energy just getting through the day when you have no habits that you don't have any left for productive labor.

Marilyn French

Race, Energy, Habit

Marilyn French (2011). “The Women's Room”, p.197, Simon and Schuster

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When a man loses superiority, he loses potency. That's what all this talk about castrating women is about. Castrating women are those who refuse to pretend men are better than they are and better than women are. The simple truth - that men are only equal - can undermine a culture more devastatingly than any bomb. Subversion is telling the truth.

Marilyn French

Simple, Men, Culture

Marilyn French (2011). “The Women's Room”, p.267, Hachette UK

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Later, she would remember these years, and realize with astonishment that she had, by fifteen, decided on most of the assumptions she would carry for the rest of her life: that people were essentially not evil, that perfection was death, that life was better than order and a little chaos good for the soul. Most important, this life was all. Unfortunately, she forgot these things, and had to remember them the hard way.

Marilyn French

Order, Years, People

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It isn't success after all, is it, if it isn't an expression of your deepest energies?

Marilyn French

Success, Women, Passion

Marilyn French (2013). “The Bleeding Heart: A Novel”, p.112, Open Road Media

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Survival is an art. It requires the dulling of the mind and the senses, and a delicate attunement to waiting, without insisting on precision about just what it is you are waiting for.

Marilyn French

Art, Waiting, Survival

Marilyn French (2011). “The Women's Room”, p.57, Simon and Schuster

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Losing the future is the best thing that ever happened to me.

Marilyn French

I Love You, Romantic, Short Love

Marilyn French (2013). “A Season in Hell: A Memoir”, p.245, Open Road Media

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There's power to: and everyone should have that, but everyone doesn't. Power to play Bach, or tennis, or boccie if you like. And there's power over; and no one should have that, but people do.

Marilyn French

Power, Should Have, Play

Marilyn French (2013). “The Bleeding Heart: A Novel”, p.110, Open Road Media

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Marriage accustomed one to the good things, so one came to take them for granted, but it magnified the bad things, so they came to feel as painful as a grain in one's eye. An open window, a forgotten quart of milk, a TV set left blaring, socks on the bathroom floor could become occasions for incredible rage.

Marilyn French

Eye, Milk, Tvs

Marilyn French (2011). “The Women's Room”, p.253, Hachette UK

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She drowned in words that could not teach her how to swim.

Marilyn French

Swim, Teach

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Never underestimate the power of helplessness!

Marilyn French

Weakness, Underestimate, Never Underestimate

Marilyn French (2013). “The Bleeding Heart: A Novel”, p.109, Open Road Media

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in a way it doesn't matter whether you open doors or close them, you still end up in a box.

Marilyn French

Depression, Doors, Matter

Marilyn French (2011). “The Women's Room”, p.10, Simon and Schuster

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For many people, morality means a set of rules governing the disposition on one's genital organs; or a set of injunctions against lying, stealing, or killing except when such acts are sanctioned by church or state.

Marilyn French

Lying, Mean, People

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there's no justice, there's only love.

Marilyn French

Justice, Only Love

Marilyn French (2013). “The Bleeding Heart: A Novel”, p.294, Open Road Media

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I'd discovered you never know yourself until you're tested and that you don't even know you're being tested until afterwards, and that in fact there isn't anyone giving the test except yourself.

Marilyn French

Giving, Tests, Facts

Marilyn French (2016). “The Women of Marilyn French: Her Mother's Daughter, Our Father, and The Bleeding Heart”, p.2161, Open Road Media

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There was no justice, there was only life. And life she had.

Marilyn French

Justice

Marilyn French (2011). “The Women's Room”, p.328, Simon and Schuster

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Even disasters -- there are always disasters when you travel -- can be turned into adventures.

Marilyn French

Adventure, Disaster

Marilyn French (2016). “The Women of Marilyn French: Her Mother's Daughter, Our Father, and The Bleeding Heart”, p.753, Open Road Media

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In a great gasp, puts her head in her hands again and cries as if her throat were a cave, as if the howling winds came from her belly, she cries like a storm that will never end.

Marilyn French

Hands, Wind, Storm

Marilyn French (2013). “Her Mother's Daughter: A Novel”, p.104, Open Road Media

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you can't equate passive dependent power with assertive power because the dependent kind isn't fun, it doesn't give you a kick, it just allows you to survive.

Marilyn French

Fun, Giving, Kind

Marilyn French (2013). “The Bleeding Heart: A Novel”, p.379, Open Road Media

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When they kept you out it was because you were black; when they let you in, it is because you are black. That's progress?

Marilyn French

Black, Progress, Liberty

Marilyn French (2011). “The Women's Room”, p.414, Simon and Schuster

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When a baby first looks at you...when it laughs that deep, unselfconscious gurgle; or when it cries and you pick it up and it clings sobbing to you...then you are-happy is not the precise word-filled.

Marilyn French

Baby, Motherhood, Laughing

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There is no power greater than the power of passive dependency.

Marilyn French

Power, Passive, Greater

Marilyn French (2013). “The Bleeding Heart: A Novel”, p.370, Open Road Media

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The very notion of superiority of one kind over another will have to disappear, although differences among kind will remain.

Marilyn French

Differences, Kind, Disappear

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rain is one thing the British do better than anybody else.

Marilyn French

Rain, England, British

Marilyn French (2013). “The Bleeding Heart: A Novel”, p.159, Open Road Media

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S and M is only the expression in the bedroom of an oppressive-submissive relation which can happen also in the kitchen or at the factory, can happen between people of any gender. There is obviously something titillating about these relationships, but it isn't the sexual components that makes them ugly, they're uglier elsewhere. Nothing sexual is depraved. Only cruelty is depraved, and that's another matter.

Marilyn French

Expression, People, Kitchen

Marilyn French (2011). “The Women's Room”, p.391, Simon and Schuster

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One thing that makes art different from life is that in art things have a shape... it allows us to fix our emotions on events at the moment they occur, it permits a union of heart and mind and tongue and tear.

Marilyn French

Art, Mind, Tears

Marilyn French (2011). “The Women's Room”, p.190, Simon and Schuster

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Marilyn French

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Born: November 21, 1929
Died: May 2, 2009
Occupation: Author
Cite this Page: Citation

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