American Woman Quotes

• Do one thing every day that scares you.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Inspirational, Positive, New Year

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  If particular care and attention is not paid to the ladies, we are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which we have no voice, or representation.

  Abigail Adams

  Women, Memorable, Equality

  Letter to John Adams, 31 Mar. 1776 See Defoe 2

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• I know why the caged bird sings.

  Maya Angelou

  Inspirational, Children, Book

  Title of book (1969), taken from the last line of "Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar in Lyrics of Hearthside (1899). Cf. Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (1979) 567:10

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• God, make me so uncomfortable that I will do the very thing I fear.

  Ruby Dee

  Peace, Uncomfortable

  58 Copy quote

• We cannot educate white women and take them by the hand. Most of us are willing to help but we can't do the white woman's homework for her. That's an energy drain. More times than she cares to remember, Nellie Wong, Asian American feminist writer, has been called by white women wanting a list of Asian American women who can give readings or workshops. We are in danger of being reduced to purvey­ors of resource lists.

  Gloria E. Anzaldúa

  Reading, Hands, White

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• The problem that has no name-which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities-is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease.

  Betty Friedan

  Country, Women, Lost Youth

  The Feminine Mystique ch. 14 (1963)

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• All the American women had purple noses and gray lips and their faces were chalk white from terrible powder. I recognized that the United States could be my life's work.

  Helena Rubinstein

  Fashion, Purple, White

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• There's a reason why forty, fifty, and sixty don't look the way they used to, and it's not because of feminism, or better living through exercise. It's because of hair dye. In the 1950's only 7 percent of American women dyed their hair; today there are parts of Manhattan and Los Angeles where there are no gray-haired women at all.

  Nora Ephron

  Exercise, Hair, Feminism

  9 Copy quote

• Why can't these American women stay in their own country? They are always telling us that it is the paradise for women. It is. That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively anxious to get out of it.

  Oscar Wilde

  Country, Paradise, Reason Why

  Oscar Wilde (1997). “Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis”, p.27, Wordsworth Editions

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• The process begins with the individual woman’s acceptance that American women, without exception, are socialized to be racist, classist and sexist, in varying degrees, and that labeling ourselves feminists does not change the fact that we must consciously work to rid ourselves of the legacy of negative socialization.

  Bell Hooks

  Acceptance, Bad Ass, Feminist

  bell hooks (2014). “Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism”, p.157, Routledge

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• American women drove hard bargains and the ended up looking the worst for it. The few natural American women left were mostly in Texas and Louisiana.

  Charles Bukowski

  Texas, Louisiana, Natural

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• The tendency of modern American women to exclaim 'Hiiiiiiiiiiii!' in soprano octaves and hug each other upon sight can be disconcerting to those unfamiliar with it.

  Kevin Hearne

  Sight, Hug, Sopranos

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• The fact that I was going to be the first American woman to go into space carried huge expectations along with it.

  Sally Ride

  Bad Ass, Space, Expectations

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• The suburban housewife - she was the dream image of the young American women and the envy, it was said, of women all over the world. The American housewife - freed by science and labor-saving appliances from the drudgery, the dangers of childbirth, and the illnesses of her grandmother had found true feminine fulfillment.

  Betty Friedan

  Dream, Grandmother, Envy

  BETTY FRIEDAN (1963). “The Feminine Mystique”

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• British and American women have very different styles and a different way of living.

  Carolina Herrera

  Style, Different, Way

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• The history of American women is about the fight for freedom, but it's less a war against oppressive men than a struggle to straighten out the perpetually mixed message about women's role that was accepted by almost everybody of both genders.

  Gail Collins

  War, Struggle, Fighting

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• She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is the secret of their charm.

  Oscar Wilde

  Beautiful, America, Secret

  Oscar Wilde (1997). “Collected Works of Oscar Wilde: The Plays, the Poems, the Stories and the Essays Including De Profundis”, p.27, Wordsworth Editions

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• I think, though, as African-American women, we are always trained to value our community even at the expense of ourselves, and so we attempt to protect the African-American community.

  Anita Hill

  Thinking, Community, African American

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• The faces of most American women over thirty are relief maps of petulant and bewildered unhappiness.

  F. Scott Fitzgerald

  Relief, Maps, Faces

  F. Scott Fitzgerald (2009). “The Crack-Up”, p.306, New Directions Publishing

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• Yes, I did feel a special responsibility to be the first American woman in space.

  Sally Ride

  Responsibility, Space, Special

  "Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I like American women. They do things sexually Russian girls never dream of doing - like showering.

  Yakov Smirnoff

  Girl, Dream, Comedy

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• I think the bottom of the totem pole is African-American women, or women of colour. I think they get the least opportunities in Hollywood.

  Denzel Washington

  Women, Opportunity, Thinking

  The Guardian Interview, www.theguardian.com. February 23, 2000.

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• Today, American women bear an average of 2.2 children that live to adulthood. Across most of Europe, women bear even fewer young.

  Helen Fisher

  Children, Average, Europe

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• People identify with me - everyone does - African American women, Caucasian women, they all identify with me because I'm ethnic.

  Janice Dickinson

  People, African American, Doe

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• American men are allotted just as many tears as American women. But because we are forbidden to shed them, we die long before women do, with our hearts exploding or our blood pressure rising or our livers eaten away by alcohol because that lake of grief inside us has no outlet. We, men, die because our faces were not watered enough.

  Pat Conroy

  Patience, Women, Grief

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