Fierce Strong Woman Quotes

She wears strength and darkness equally well, The girl has always been half goddess, half hell

You can love her with everything you have and she still wont belong to you. She will run wild with you, beside you with everystep but let me tell you something about women who run with wolves, their fierce hearts dont settle between walls and their instinct is stronger than upbringing. Love her wild or leave her there.

Do not be afraid to bare your teeth - you were not brought into this world covered in blood to become a gentle, tamed thing.

With God, you are stronger than your struggles and more fierce than your fears. God provides comfort and strength to those who trust in Him. Be encouraged, keep standing, and know that everything's going to be alright.

She wasn’t going to back down. She knew that. She communicated that. She was here until the death.

I know her by her angry air, Her brightblack eyes, her brightblack hair, Her rapid laughters wild and shrill, As laughter of the woodpecker From the bosom of a hill. 'Tis Kate--she sayeth what she will; For Kate hath an unbridled tongue, Clear as the twanging of a harp. Her heart is like a throbbing star. Kate hath a spirit ever strung Like a new bow, and bright and sharp As edges of the scymetar. Whence shall she take a fitting mate? For Kate no common love will feel; My woman-soldier, gallant Kate, As pure and true as blades of steel. Kate saith "the world is void of might". Kate saith "the men are gilded flies". Kate snaps her fingers at my vows; Kate will not hear of lover's sighs. I would I were an armèd knight, Far famed for wellwon enterprise, And wearing on my swarthy brows The garland of new-wreathed emprise: For in a moment I would pierce The blackest files of clanging fight, And strongly strike to left and right, In dreaming of my lady's eyes. Oh! Kate loves well the bold and fierce; But none are bold enough for Kate, She cannot find a fitting mate.

The world stopped fighting for me long ago, I had to rely on self and pave a path on my own. Some of us women are fierce beyond our means, We are raised by warriors to be nothing but queens.

What is she like? Evanjalin of the Monts?' he asked. Finnikin thought for a moment. 'Strong. In here,' he said, thumping his chest twice. 'Humbling. Ruthless. Cunning. She can love people with a fierceness that I have not seen before.' He smiled when he realized he was talking too much. 'And she looks like a Mont woman, so of course she's very beautiful.

She was such a paradox. In some ways, the strongest woman he’d ever met, her fire and spite and self-sufficiency clear and defined. In other ways, she was the softest, most vulnerable. She put herself too far out there, felt too strongly, would love too fiercely, give too freely, her actions a roadmap to destruction that would one day kill that spirit.

Why I am Passionate and Dedicated 1000% to producing and bringing my books Loving Summer, Bitter Frost, and other book series to the Screen is because these are the very books that I was cyber-bullied on. When confronted by bullies, you don't shy away, but you Fight Back. Many people have not read the books, but believe fake news and damaging slanders against them and me as a person because it was a marketing strategy used to sell my books' rival books. By bringing these very books to the screen, people can see how different my books are to theirs. Also, most of all, it is pretty darn fun and fierce for me, as a female Asian writer, director, and producer to bring these fan favorite books to screen.

How do you set a Phoenix free? You find its light. You open its ribcage. You let it sing and watch it rise. @reenadossauthor

My love for these books, at its purest, is not really about Peeta or anything silly and girly. I love that a young woman character is fierce and strong but hum in ways I find believable, relatable. Katniss is clearly a heroine, but a heroine with issues. She intrigues me because she never seems to know her own strength. She isn't blandly insecure the way girls are often forced to be in fiction. She is brave but flawed. She is a heroine, but she is also a girl who loves two boys and can't choose which boy she loves more. She is not sure she is up to the task of leading a revolution, but she does her best, even as she doubts herself. Katniss endures the unendurable. She is damaged and it shows. At times, it might seem like her suffering is gratuitous, but life often presents unendurable circumstances people manage to survive. Only the details differ. The Hunger Games trilogy is dark and brutal, but in the end, the books also offer hope - for a better world and a better people and, for one woman, a better life, a life she can share with a man who understands her strength and doesn't expect her to compromise that strength, a man who can hold her weak places and love her through the darkest of her memories, the worst of her damage. Of course I love the Hunger Games. The trilogy offers the tempered hope that everyone who survives something unendurable hungers for.

Come, Paul!" she reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray like a steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he receded; I thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could endure, made now to feel what defied suppression, I cried - "My heart will break!" What I felt seemed literal heart-break; but the seal of another fountain yielded under the strain: one breath from M. Paul, the whisper, "Trust me!" lifted a load, opened an outlet. With many a deep sob, with thrilling, with icy shiver, with strong trembling, and yet with relief - I wept. "Leave her to me; it is a crisis: I will give her a cordial, and it will pass," said the calm Madame Beck. To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something like being left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul answered deeply, harshly, and briefly - "Laissez-moi!" in the grim sound I felt a music strange, strong, but life-giving. "Laissez-moi!" he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his facial muscles all quivering as he spoke. "But this will never do," said Madame, with sternness. More sternly rejoined her kinsman - "Sortez d'ici!" "I will send for Père Silas: on the spot I will send for him," she threatened pertinaciously. "Femme!" cried the Professor, not now in his deep tones, but in his highest and most excited key, "Femme! sortez à l'instant!" He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion beyond what I had yet felt. "What you do is wrong," pursued Madame; "it is an act characteristic of men of your unreliable, imaginative temperament; a step impulsive, injudicious, inconsistent - a proceeding vexatious, and not estimable in the view of persons of steadier and more resolute character." "You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me," said he, "but you shall see; the event shall teach you. Modeste," he continued less fiercely, "be gentle, be pitying, be a woman; look at this poor face, and relent. You know I am your friend, and the friend of your friends; in spite of your taunts, you well and deeply know I may be trusted. Of sacrificing myself I made no difficulty but my heart is pained by what I see; it must have and give solace. Leave me!" This time, in the "leave me" there was an intonation so bitter and so imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck herself could for one moment delay obedience; but she stood firm; she gazed upon him dauntless; she met his eye, forbidding and fixed as stone. She was opening her lips to retort; I saw over all M. Paul's face a quick rising light and fire; I can hardly tell how he managed the movement; it did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy; he gave his hand; it scarce touched her I thought; she ran, she whirled from the room; she was gone, and the door shut, in one second. The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he told me to wipe my eyes; he waited quietly till I was calm, dropping from time to time a stilling, solacing word. Ere long I sat beside him once more myself - re-assured, not desperate, nor yet desolate; not friendless, not hopeless, not sick of life, and seeking death. "It made you very sad then to lose your friend?" said he. "It kills me to be forgotten, Monsieur," I said.

How brave you are for building paths out of the wreckages. How strong you are for standing in the midst of a greater collapse. How wise you are the expand your spirit beyond human limitations and continue becoming more of yourself, every single time. The world won't make you a battle cry, you're a warrior who learnt to shine.

Cause life's best when you are yourself! And I love being my true wild self, Yes, I am fierce!

Woman’s Anthem Women are fierce. They are powerful. No matter what language they speak, how they dress, or the work they choose to do. What matters is they have a choice, and the freedom to carve out a life for themselves. As long as we know women who are strong and resilient, we must respect them, carry them forward, lift them up. For they are the product of all our other selves, the women we were, the ones we strive to be, the collective struggle of our mothers, our sisters, our daughters. Our salvation will only come if we stand together

The imaginable had always been problematic. When I was a child the feel of things went into me: deep, narrow, intense. The grittiness of the street, the chalk-white air of the drugstore, the grain of the wooden floor in the storefront library, the blocks of cheese in the grocery-store refrigerator. I took it all so seriously, so literally. I was without imagination. I paid a kind of idiot attention to the look and feel of things, leveling an intent inner stare at the prototypic face of the world. These streets were all streets, these buildings all buildings, these women and men all women and men. I could imagine no other than that which stood before me. That child’s literalness of the emotions continued to exert influence, as though a shock had been administered to the nervous system and the flow of imagination had stopped. I could feel strongly, but I could not imagine. The granite gray of the street, the American-cheese yellow of the grocery store, the melancholy brownish tint of the buildings were all still in place, only now it was the woman on the couch, the girl hanging out the window, the confinement that sealed us off, on which I looked with that same inner intentness that had always crowded out possibility as well as uncertainty. It would be years before I learned that extraordinary focus, that excluding insistence, is also called depression.

She was strong–fierce even–yet at the same time delicate in all the right ways. At times she could be a robust gush of wind during a storm, and at others, she could be the gentle breeze that caressed his cheek on a calm summer day. She was a whirlwind of a woman and he would more than willingly get swept up in her.

Americans aren't stupid. We are, however, preternaturally disposed to herd behavior (FOMO), with a strong desire to preserve a sense of individuality and maintain control over our decision making. We're joiners and don't want to be left out of fads; we're also fiercely independent and don't want to be told what to do.

She gave birth to me, but she is not my mother. That awful, scheming, selfish, unnatural woman is not my mother.” Maggie stood there amid the crimson tulips, tears coursing down her face, until she felt strong, slender arms encircle her and a graceful hand stroke over her hair. “Of course not, my dear,” the duchess said, her tone fierce and proud. “I am your mother, His Grace is your papa, and you are our daughter.

They were two-thirds of the way up when he heard a woman’s voice right behind him. “Pretty. So very pretty.” He turned to see the lady patting Deedee’s head, almost petting her like an animal at the zoo. The little girl’s face was filled with horror. “Such a pretty child,” the woman said. “I could just eat you up. Like a turkey dinner. Yes. So sweet.” Mark faced front again, repulsed. There was a bulging feeling in his chest, as if something were trying to escape. He’d just taken another step when a man reached out and poked his shoulder with a finger. “Good, strong young boy, you are,” the stranger said. “I bet your mama’s proud, eh?” Mark ignored him, went up another step. This time people on either side of him put their hands on his arm—not in a threatening way, just a touch. Another step. A woman moved away from the wall and threw her arms around his neck, squeezed him in a quick and fierce hug. Then she released him and stepped back into her position to the side. A wicked smile distorted her features. Revulsion filled Mark. He couldn’t take another minute in that house. He threw caution to the wind and reached behind him, grabbed Deedee’s hand, then started moving faster up the steps. He could hear Alec’s feet pounding as he brought up the rear.

A free woman has a strong neck—an open connection between heart and head, a balance between reality and ideals. To fall into the complex is to damn herself for her imperfections; to accept the attitude of the virgin is to accept her human life and open herself to her own truth. Then Lucifer turns his other face; he becomes the Light Bringer, the Christ. So long as the virgin is unconscious, she is unable to surrender to Light. The very Light blocks her acceptance of herself and becomes the demon lover because she cannot receive. Once she is conscious enough to forgive her own and other people's imperfections, then her positive animus becomes the bridge between conscious and unconscious. Psychic incest is the energy source of creativity. Incorporating the Light at the center of the father complex is the soul work of the receptive virgin. In the Middle Ages, this task was symbolized in the taming of the unicorn. The unicorn symbolizes the creative power of the spirit, and was seen in medieval times as an allegory of Christ. Its energy is so fierce and so dangerous that only a virgin can tame it, and only then through deception. She must deliver it into the hands of the human hunters who kill it and allow its red blood to flow. In its transformed, resurrected state, the unicorn is the powerful energy contained in the virgin's holy garden.

She opened her Bible to the poetry of the Song of Solomon, forbidden to her virgin mind. The verses alternated between the bride's and the groom's lines, packed with words of desire of both spirit and body. And then there were the Daughters of Jerusalem, the maidens surrounding the bride, who tempted her to indulge in love before marriage, until she pleaded with them to wait. I adjure you, O daughters of Jerusalem... that you stir not up nor awaken love until it pleases. What did that mean? Set me as a seal on your heart, a seal on your arm. For love is strong as death, passion fierce as Sheol. What exactly were love and passion to be this ardent? Ruthi had no passion for Yossel and his painful yi'chud, so unlike these fervent verses. A cool breeze stroked the needle-fingered leaves of the cypress outside the yard, and Esther's skin prickled with whatever it was that wasn't supposed to be stirred in her yet. May he kiss me with the kisses of his mouth- for your love is better than wine. Your anointing oils are fragrant, your name is sweet-smelling oil. So the maidens love you.

Your beast's little trick didn't work on me,' she said with quiet steel. 'Apparently, an iron will is all it takes to keep a glamour from digging in. So I had to watch as Father and Elain went from sobbing hysterics into nothing. I had to listen to them talk about how lucky it was for you to be taken to some made-up aunt's house, how some winter wind had shattered our door. And I thought I'd gone mad- but every time I did, I would look at that painted part of the table, then at the claw marks farther down, and know it wasn't in my head.' I'd never heard of a glamour not working. But Nesta's mind was so entirely her own; she had put up such strong walls- of steel and iron and ash wood- that even a High Lord's magic couldn't pierce them. 'Elain said- said you went to visit me, though. That you tried.' Nesta snorted, her face grave and full of that long-simmering anger that she could never master. 'He stole you away into the night, claiming some nonsense about the Treaty. And then everything went on as if it had never happened. It wasn't right. None of it was right.' My hands slackened at my sides. 'You went after me,' I said. 'You went after me- to Prythian.' 'I got to the wall. I couldn't find a way through.' I raised a shaking hand to my throat. 'You trekked two days there and two days back- through the winter woods?' She shrugged, looking at the sliver she'd pried from the table. 'I hired that mercenary from town to bring me a week after you were taken. With the money from your pelt. She was the only one who seemed like she would believe me.' 'You did that- for me?' Nesta's eyes- my eyes, our mother's eyes- met mine. 'It wasn't right,' she said again. Tamlin had been wrong when we'd discussed whether my father would have ever come after me- he didn't possess the courage, the anger. If anything, he would have hired someone to do it for him. But Nesta had gone with that mercenary. My hateful, cold sister had been willing to brave Prythian to rescue me. ... I looked at my sister, really looked at her, at this woman who couldn't stomach the sycophants who now surrounded her, who had never spent a day in the forest but had gone into wolf territory... Who had shrouded the loss of our mother, then our downfall, in icy rage and bitterness, because the anger had been a lifeline, the cruelty a release. But she had cared- beneath it, she had cared, and perhaps loved more fiercely that I could comprehend, more deeply and loyally.

He'd found a sweet-water stream that I drank from, and for dinner we found winkles that we ate baked on stones. We watched the sun set like a peach on the sea, making plans on how we might live till a ship called by. Next we made a better camp beside a river and had ourselves a pretty bathing pool all bordered with ferns; lovely it was, with marvelous red parrots chasing through the trees. Our home was a hut made of branches thatched with flat leaves, a right cozy place to sleep in. We had fat birds that Jack snared for our dinner, and made fire using a shard of looking glass I found in my pocket. We had lost the compass in the water, but didn't lament it. I roasted fish and winkles in the embers. For entertainment we even had Jack's penny whistle. It was a paradise, it was." "You loved him," her mistress said softly, as her pencil resumed its hissing across the paper. Peg fought a choking feeling in her chest. Aye, she had loved him- a damned sight more than this woman could ever know. "He loved me like his own breath," she said, in a voice that was dangerously plaintive. "He said he thanked God for the day he met me." Peg's eyes brimmed full; she was as weak as water. The rest of her tale stuck in her throat like a fishbone. Mrs. Croxon murmured that Peg might be released from her pose. Peg stared into space, again seeing Jack's face, so fierce and true. He had looked down so gently on her pitiful self; on her bruises and her bony body dressed in salt-hard rags. His blue eyes had met hers like a beacon shining on her naked soul. "I see past your always acting the tough girl," he insisted with boyish stubbornness. "I'll be taking care of you now. So that's settled." And she'd thought to herself, so this is it, girl. All them love stories, all them ballads that you always thought were a load of old tripe- love has found you out, and here you are. Mrs. Croxon returned with a glass of water, and Peg drank greedily. She forced herself to continue with self-mocking gusto. "When we lay down together in our grass house we whispered vows to stay true for ever and a day. We took pleasure from each other's bodies, and I can tell you, mistress, he were no green youth, but all grown man. So we were man and wife before God- and that's the truth." She faced out Mrs. Croxon with a bold stare. "You probably think such as me don't love so strong and tender, but I loved Jack Pierce like we was both put on earth just to find each other. And that night I made a wish," Peg said, raising herself as if from a trance, "a foolish wish it were- that me and Jack might never be rescued. That the rotten world would just leave us be.

extent, Polly Lear took Fanny Washington’s place: she was a pretty, sociable young woman who became Martha’s closest female companion during the first term, at home or out and about, helping plan her official functions. The Washingtons were delighted with the arrival of Thomas Jefferson, a southern planter of similar background to themselves, albeit a decade younger; if not a close friend, he was someone George had felt an affinity for during the years since the Revolution, writing to him frequently for advice. The tall, lanky redhead rented lodgings on Maiden Lane, close to the other members of the government, and called on the president on Sunday afternoon, March 21. One of Jefferson’s like-minded friends in New York was the Virginian James Madison, so wizened that he looked elderly at forty. Madison was a brilliant parliamentary and political strategist who had been Washington’s closest adviser and confidant in the early days of the presidency, helping design the machinery of government and guiding measures through the House, where he served as a representative. Another of Madison’s friends had been Alexander Hamilton, with whom he had worked so valiantly on The Federalist Papers. But the two had become estranged over the question of the national debt. As secretary of the Treasury, Hamilton was charged with devising a plan to place the nation’s credit on a solid basis at home and abroad. When Hamilton presented his Report on the Public Credit to Congress in January, there was an instant split, roughly geographic, north vs. south. His report called for the assumption of state debts by the nation, the sale of government securities to fund this debt, and the creation of a national bank. Washington had become convinced that Hamilton’s plan would provide a strong economic foundation for the nation, particularly when he thought of the weak, impoverished Congress during the war, many times unable to pay or supply its troops. Madison led the opposition, incensed because he believed that dishonest financiers and city slickers would be the only ones to benefit from the proposal, while poor veterans and farmers would lose out. Throughout the spring, the debate continued. Virtually no other government business got done as Hamilton and his supporters lobbied fiercely for the plan’s passage and Madison and his followers outfoxed them time and again in Congress. Although pretending to be neutral, Jefferson was philosophically and personally in sympathy with Madison. By April, Hamilton’s plan was voted down and seemed to be dead, just as a new debate broke out over the placement of the national capital. Power, prestige, and a huge economic boost would come to the city named as capital. Hamilton and the bulk of New Yorkers and New Englanders

They were strong. Fierce.” I nodded, her eyes holding mine. And in her words I saw the promise. The memory. The equality of women in the tribe. “In war,” Aggie said, her voice going softer, “it was important that the losses in battle be compensated. If warriors of the tribe were killed, no matter if our people won a battle or lost, those warriors had value that had to be replaced in some way. After a battle, the Tsalagi would take the same number of prisoners, scalps, or lives that they lost.” Aggie paused, watching my face. Even more gently, she said, “Women led in the execution of prisoners. In the torture of prisoners. In the buying and selling of prisoners as slaves to recoup the financial cost of war. In the adoption of prisoners into the tribe. Such was the right and responsibility of women. As mothers. As widows. As warriors in their own right. “There was no one more fierce than a woman avenging her husband or son.

And you said I could trust you,” Mencheres interrupted softly. “So I am trusting you, Kira, and letting you go despite your knowledge.” She had no idea how difficult this was for him. When Kira offered herself willingly in exchange for healing her sister, Mencheres had almost seized on it. The chance to see her each day, learn more about her—and seduce her to his bed—had filled him with a primal, hungry purpose. He wanted to show Kira things she hadn’t even imagined, take her to places she’d only heard of, and lavish on her extravagances that would shame a queen. It made no sense; he barely knew Kira, yet something in her called to him in a way that almost overpowered him. The last time he’d felt this strongly about a woman, kingdoms had fallen in his wake. But the darkness of the underworld loomed before him, mocking him that his time was almost over. Kira had a future. He didn’t. He had to free her, both to let her live out her life and to let him finish what was left of his. She came toward him with that strong, fighter’s stride that was at odds with her feminine slenderness and grabbed him in a fierce hug. “Thank you,” she whispered. This time, she kissed his throat, not his hand, and the brush of her soft, warm lips there almost broke his control. He had to leave. Now.

tried to imagine myself as a very tall, strong-rooted tree. I let the muscles in my shoulders release and focused all of my energy into the centre of my belly. That’s where the fire burned, and I knew I would need to draw on it now, with precision and fierceness. A woman answered.

Thirrin Freer Strong-in-the-Arm Lindenshield carried her names with ease. She was thirteen years old, tall for her age and could ride her horse as well as the best of her father’s soldiers. She was also the heir to the throne of the Icemark. Her tutor might add that she was attentive when she wanted to be, clever when she bothered to try, and had her father’s temper. Few compared her to her mother, who had died when Thirrin was born. But those who remembered the proud young woman of the fierce Hypolitan people said that Thirrin was her double.

A quiet peacefulness stole through him, dimming the sharp sense of loss. His arms contracted around her, the pressure fierce. “I’m coming to find you once the trial’s over,” he murmured against the top of her head. She kissed his chest. “You’d better.” “We’re not done,” he told her. “Not by a long shot.” She hummed in agreement and caressed his chest with her fingertips. Nate stroked the length of her spine, savoring the silky texture of her skin. He missed her already and she was still lying naked in his arms. “Just a few more days and this’ll all be over.” “Don’t make me wait too long, okay?” “I won’t.” He leaned his head back, tipped her chin up with one hand until she met his eyes. If there was even a tiny part of her that doubted his intentions, he wanted that cleared up now. “I’ve never felt like this about anyone before.” Her eyes softened and she smiled that serene smile that soothed him deep inside. “Me neither.” He could drown in this woman and die a happy man. He admired her so damn much. “You’re strong, baby. So much stronger than you even realize. You’ve got this.” “Have I got you, though?” Normally the question would have freaked him out. Hearing it from her made him feel insanely possessive. “Yeah, you’ve got me, baby.” He was falling so hard and so fast, and it didn’t even faze him. “Then I can handle everything else on my own,” she whispered, and pulled his mouth down to hers.

Joan of Arc was no fierce amazon. Far from it. There was nothing even slightly “manly” about her. On the contrary, it was her youth, innocence, purity, and holiness that made it possible for her to do what she did. Only just past girlhood she was deeply affected by the suffering she saw in the battles around her, never becoming inured to the carnage and agonies of war, as a male soldier typically will do. It was precisely her vulnerability and womanly virtue that stunned and inspired the rough soldiers in a way that no man ever could do. It was because of these qualities that they were in awe of her and respected her. Though her spirit was as large as anyone’s who has ever lived, she herself was neither big nor strong. In other words, there could never be a male Joan of Arc. The very idea is a laughable oxymoron.

Montreal November 1704 Temperature 34 degrees “Girl! English, eh? What is your name? Indians stole you, eh? I’ll send news to your people.” His excellent speech meant that he did a lot of trading with the English. It meant, Mercy prayed, that he liked the English. She found her tongue. “Will you take me to France, sir? Or anywhere at all? Wherever you are going--I can pay.” He raised his eyebrows. “You do not belong to an Indian?” She flushed and knew her red cheeks gave their own answer, but rather than speaking, she held out the cross. The sun was bright and the gemstones even brighter. The man sucked in his breath. He leaned very close to her to examine the cross. “Yes,” he said. “It is worth much.” He straightened up slowly, his eyes traveling from her waist to her breast to her throat to her hair. The other sailors also straightened, and they too left their work, drawn by the glittering cross. “So you want to sail with me, girl?” He stroked her cheek. His nails were yellow and thick like shingles, and filthy underneath. He twined her hair into a hank, circling it tighter and tighter, as if to scalp. “You are the jewel,” he said. “Come. I get a comb and fix this hair.” The other sailors slouched over. They pressed against her and she could not retreat. He continued to hold her by the hair, as if she were a rabbit to be skinned. She could see neither river nor sky, only the fierce grins of sailors leaning down. “Eh bien,” said the Frenchman, returning to his own tongue. “This little girl begs to sail with us,” he told his men. “What do you say, boys?” He began laughing. “Where should she sleep? What am I bid?” She did not have enough French to get every word, but it was the same in any language. The sailors laughed raucously. Indians had strong taboos about women. Men would not be with their women if they were going hunting or having important meetings, and certainly not when going off to war. She had never heard of an Indian man forcing himself on a woman. But these were not Indians. She let the cross fall on its chain and pushed the Frenchman away, but he caught both her wrists easily in his free hand and stretched her out by the wrists as well as by the hair. Tannhahorens pricked the white man’s hand with the tip of his scalping knife. White men loading barrels stood still. White sailors on deck ceased to move. White passersby froze where they walked. The bearded Frenchman drew back, holding his hands up in surrender. A little blood ran down his arm. “Of course,” he said, nodding. “She’s yours. I see.” The sailors edged away. Behind them now, Mercy could see two pirogues of Indians drifting by the floating dock. They looked like Sauk from the west. They were standing up in the deep wells of their sturdy boats, shifting their weapons to catch the sun. Tannhahorens did not look at Mercy. The tip of his knife advanced and the Frenchman backed away from it. He was a very strong man, possibly stronger than Tannhahorens. But behind Tannhahorens were twenty heavily armed braves. The Frenchman kept backing and Tannhahorens kept pressing. No sailor dared move a muscle, not outnumbered as they were. The Sauk let out a hideous wailing war cry. Mercy shuddered with the memory of other war cries. Even more terrified, all the French took another step back--and three of them fell into the St. Lawrence River. The Sauk burst into wild laughter. The voyageurs hooted and booed. The sailors threw ropes to their floundering comrades, because only Indians knew how to swim.

When I say you will bathe, Becca Brandt, you will bathe,” he hissed. She shrieked as he swept her up into his arms. Suddenly, she was flying through the air. Before she could scream again, she hit the water. The shock of the numbing cold stream drove everything but self-preservation from her mind. She struggled to get her head above the surface, came up sputtering and gasping for breath, lost her balance, and fell under again. Strong hands closed around her shoulders and lifted her to her feet. As the panic receded, she realized that the water was only waist deep and she was in no danger of drowning. “By the great deeds of Glooskap! Are you possessed of a demon, woman, that you try me so? Can you not bathe without drowning yourself?” She stared at him through dripping strands of hair and cursed him with the foulest expletive she could muster. “Good,” he said. “If you can call me names, you’ve enough breath to survive.” He let go of her and waded out of the creek. “I will go downstream,” he said, “and wash my own body. See that you clean your hair properly, or I will throw you in again and do it myself.” “You . . . you’re crazy!” she said with chattering teeth. “I’m . . . freezing!” “Then wash quickly and return to the fire. I’ll try and find us something to break our fast.” “Fiend!” she shouted at his broad back. He must be an animal not to feel the cold, she thought, as she splashed half-heartedly in the shallows. Her feet and legs were solid ice. Her body shook with chills. “Damn him,” she muttered. “Damn him to a frozen hell.

Eyes still burning with unholy wrath, he drew back and lightly stroked her bruised cheek. “Jesucristo, mujer tonta! Foolish woman! How could you have put yourself in such danger?” Before she could answer, he once again pulled her into a fierce embrace and covered her face with kisses. Her breath fled as Rafe clung to her so tightly that she could feel the strong beat of his heart. A stream of Spanish words poured from his lips between kisses. They sounded like curses. The dichotomy between his words and actions made what little remained of her common sense reel in confusion. The rest of her reveled in his touch and yearned for more. Still

So you intend to find a bride with the help of my grandmother, is that it?” She wondered what sort of woman he hoped to woo. It wasn’t going to be easy, for few women would marry a man who wanted her for nothing but money. Only someone quite desperate. Ireland lay in ruins, and it was unlikely that any woman would want to live there. “Indeed. Unless you change your mind, that is.” He reached out and took her gloved hand. His touch lingered upon her, warming the kidskin glove. When he stared into her eyes, she had a sudden rash thought that he was about to kiss her. Right here, in front of her footman and Beauregard. “Keep your hands to yourself, Mr. Donovan. Or I shall be forced to whack you with a parasol.” “Or a rake,” he suggested cheerfully. He winked at her, and she relaxed when she realized that he was only teasing her. “I could be quite lethal with gardening tools. You don’t want to imagine what I would do with a pair of shears.” He winced and made a face. “You terrify me.” Her smile widened. “You should be scared. I can be quite fierce when provoked.” “I can easily believe that.” His green eyes locked upon hers. “You are a strong woman, Lady Rose. You would tell everyone to go and kiss the devil’s backside before you’d turn away from your family or those who need you. Am I wrong?

A strong woman is one who feels deeply and loves fiercely. Her tears flow just as abundantly as her laughter. She is both soft and powerful. She is practical and spiritual. She is a gift to her family and the world... tag and appreciate the strong women in your life who keep you going...

You’re very special. You’re the most special woman I’ve ever met—and I’ve met a lot.” I never knew a woman who could fight so fiercely. I never knew a woman who wouldn’t break under pressure. I never knew a woman so strong. It turned me on just thinking about it.

Roxy is free from us. We are letting her go. And I’m praying to whoever the fuck listens she’ll come back because, for once in my life, I’m happy. I have everything I need, something money could never buy—someone to walk this life with. It just so happens that someone is also for my brothers as well, which makes sense. No one would ever come between us. The same brilliant, strong, fierce, angry, smart and sexy woman. She’s our heart. Our softness. Our reason, in such a short amount of time. But for her? We are her captors.

It was a strange passage. Most of it seemed more a dream than reality. Such things as the tremendous gait we built up—far more than light speed— and the great distances we traveled were the realities, but I barely noticed them. More real was the unreality of the thin, lovely forms of the Nor maids moving about their mighty princess, the soft fires of their floating hair like seedling flames from the vast fire of Vanue’s god-life crowned by its floating cloud of yellow; our own eyes burning like the spotted wings of moths against the screen of her will; the sad faces of our own maids beside us, gazing first at the fierce white flame of her body and then at our own bemused selves; the vaulting of the vast ship walls about us; the unfamiliar instruments blinking and whirring. It was a very real dream to me—a dream I knew I would never stop dreaming. Strange passage. . . Ever the whisper of the feet of the Nor maids on some swift errand; the soft rumble of the voice of their living Goddess and the answering bright song of her worshipping maidens. Yes, it was a strange passage, and every mile of it brought home a fascinating realization. I had embarked on the most amazing voyage of my whole life. The very thought of what now certainly lay before me was enough to stun my mind into an apathy of thinking that was hard to overcome; yet my mind was so full of excitement that it did strive to think, to add to the realization of what the future would hold. A new life was at hand; opening to wonders that staggered me to think of them—and awed me into all-engulfing reverence. To live to become what this Nor princess had become; to have the love of people as she had the love of these Nor maids—that is the real dream. I knew that I must gain the key to the door of a way of living that would lead to the full value of the Nortan life. So it was, sitting in the thrall of that too-strong beauty of woman-life, we noted so little. How much time passed? I will never know. It was as if all body functions ceased, as though food and drink were not needed—as long as we were in the presence of Vanue of Nor. But I did know that she was in continual communication with the planet Nor over the space telescreens. Face after face appeared before her, murmured briefly and intensely, and vanished; only to be replaced by others. I knew vaguely that she was calling for a conference on the strength of our information; and sensed also that we would attend that conference at her side. The thought dawned on me slowly. Here was an honor few ro ever attain in the first century of their growth. By old Mother Mu! To see those Elders of Nor, the whole lot of them, male and female, all at once. . . ! That would be more than one could well stand. An overpowering, devastating ecstasy. . . . Well, it would be an interesting death.

I should have known you would be a king,” she said quietly. Her eyes were steady on the Warder’s face, but her voice trembled slightly. Lan looked back at her just as intently. It seemed to Rand that the Warder’s face actually softened. “I am not a king, Nynaeve. Just a man. A man without as much to his name as even the meanest farmer’s croft.” Nynaeve’s voice steadied. “Some women don’t ask for land, or gold. Just the man.” “And the man who would ask her to accept so little would not be worthy of her. You are a remarkable woman, as beautiful as the sunrise, as fierce as a warrior. You are a lioness, Wisdom.” “A Wisdom seldom weds.” She paused to take a deep breath, as if steeling herself. “But if I go to Tar Valon, it may be that I will be something other than a Wisdom.” “Aes Sedai marry as seldom as Wisdoms. Few man can live with so much power in a wife, dimming them by her radiance whether she wishes to or not.” “Some men are strong enough. I know one such.” If there could have been any doubt, her look left none as to whom she meant. “All I have is a sword, and a war I cannot win, but can never stop fighting.

When someone violates you sexually, it does not simply haunt and aggrieve you; it alters the very shape of your soul. And altered I was. Contrary to the mythology surrounding the unflinching nature of African-American women, we, too, experience trauma. Black women—our essence, our emotional intricacies, the indignities we carry in our bones—are the most deeply misunderstood human beings in history. Those who know nothing about us have had the audacity to try to introduce us to ourselves, in the unsteady strokes of caricature, on stages, in books, and through their distorted reflections of us. The resulting Fun House image, a haphazard depiction sketched beneath the dim light of ignorance, allows ample room for our strength, our rage and tenacity, to stand at center stage. When we express anger, the audience of the world applauds. That expression aligns with their portrait of us. As long as we play our various designated roles—as court jesters and as comic relief, as Aunt Jemimas and as Jezebels, as maids whisking aperitifs into drawing rooms, as shuckin’ and jivin’ half-wits serving up levity—we are worthy of recognition in their meta-narrative. We are obedient Negroes. We are dutiful and thus affirmable. But when we dare tiptoe outside the lines of those typecasts, when we put our full humanity on display, when we threaten the social constructs that keep others in comfortable superiority, we are often dismissed. There is no archetype on file in which a Black woman is simultaneously resolute and trembling, fierce and frightened, dominant and receding. My mother, a woman who, amid abuse, stuffed hope and a way out into the slit of a mattress, is the very face of fortitude. I am an heir to her remarkable grit. However, beneath that tough exterior, I’ve also inherited my mother’s tender femininity, that part of her spirit susceptible to bruising and bleeding, the doleful Dosha who sat by the window shelling peanuts, pondering how to carry on. The myth of the Strong Black Woman bears a kernel of truth, but it is only a half-seed. The other half is delicate and ailing, all the more so because it has been denied sunlight.

Another image was for a very different audience: the “Extroverted and Disagreeable” swing voter. This slide depicted a woman. “The ‘Extroverted and Disagreeable’ voter needs a message that is all about her ability to assert her rights,” I said. “This type of voter likes to be heard. On any topic,” I said. “She knows what’s best for her. She has a strong internal locus of control and hates to be told what to do, especially by the government.” The woman on the slide was wielding a handgun, a fierce expression on her face. The text below read, “Don’t Question My Right to Own a Gun, and I Won’t Question Your Stupidity Not To.

Just because we’re women doesn’t mean we can’t understand politics or organize. We have a lot to offer. I’m actually a social worker and have experience working with vulnerable people,’ Jolene continued. ‘Steph, you’re a strong and fierce woman, you get what I’m saying, right?

Woman’s Anthem Women are fierce. They are powerful. No matter what language they speak, how they dress, or the work they choose to do. What matters is they have a choice, and the freedom to carve out a life for themselves. As long as we know women who are strong and resilient, we must respect them, carry them forward, lift them up. For they are the product of all our other selves, the women we were, the ones we strive to be, the collective struggle of our mothers, our sisters, our daughters. Our salvation will only come if we stand together.

Women were made to empower! Women were made to be fierce! Women are strong! Women are creative! Happy International Women's Day!

This culture is rabid to tell women how much oxygen they can use, space they can take, tables they can join, opinions they are allowed. Code words abound to signal when a woman has stepped too far: hysterical, bitchy, bossy, aggressive. (The man versions of these words are: energetic, strong, decisive, assertive, because “bossy men” are just called “leaders.”) Women have always struggled for a credible place at the table.

She spoke to a woman whose strong, charismatic presence proclaimed her a noteworthy force within this group. The motivators were always easy to spot. The woman was tall, with a fierce, beautiful face, her functional khaki clothes draped with bright, fringed shawls. Ari was entranced by this dashing creature who stroke from menhir to menhir, running her long, strong fingers over the circuits, her thick, red hair wrapped up in a colourful scarf.

My pulse thunders in my ears. It feels like my heart’s rattling my ribs loose, it’s pounding so violently inside my chest. If he touches me any further, I won’t be strong enough to resist Ren anymore. I’ll throw myself at him, beg him to give me everything for just a little while. To give me for now until he can have forever with her. Her. God, my blood boils, and a kick of anger surges through my veins. I hate her. I’m wildly jealous of this woman, who I can only assume is entirely, completely worthy of him. And I know, I trust that she is, because I trust Ren. He’s measured and thoughtful. He has his head screwed on straight. He values the right things. She’s probably an understated beauty, because Ren’s too wholesome to need a knockout—he only asks for beauty from within. She’s one of those rescue-shelter volunteers who bakes perfectly circular chocolate chip cookies and makes friends with all the grandmas on the block. She wants three kids—two boys and a girl—and she loves to scrapbook. She also reads those criminally sex-free romances and is the least erotically adventurous woman on the planet— Whoa, there, Francesca. Getting a little nasty, aren’t we? Well, yes. My thoughts have turned uncharitable. That’s my jealousy talking. That’s my covetous envy. A fierce possessiveness for someone I have no right to. An unwarranted, unfair animosity toward a woman I should be happy for. “I want to apologize, Frankie. About last night.” I spin, tugged out of my thoughts. “What?” Ren frowns up at me from his crouched position, petting Pazza. “I don’t remember everything, because that headache was…unearthly painful, and I’d taken one of the pills for it that Amy prescribed me, but I have a vague memory of being very into hand holding.” Heat rushes through me as I bite my lip. God, you’d think we’d made out, the way thinking of it affects me. “You were.” He grimaces. “It was unprofessional of me. I’m sorry.” His face transforms to a wide smile as Pazza licks his face, perching her muddy paws on his knees. “Pazza, down.” My voice is sharp, and she drops immediately, jogging over to me. Ren slowly stands with a look of wariness on his face. “What’s the matter?” “Nothing. Just Pazza. Sh-she’ll ruin your slacks.” I point at the grass and mud staining his knees. He smiles and shrugs. “I don’t care, Frankie. I can do my laundry. I’m a spot-treating wizard, actually.” “Of course, you are.” I can’t get a stain out of my clothes to save my life. Why do all these little things about him add up to something so perfectly right to me? Why does he have to be so wonderful? Why do I have to be so fucked up?

The opposition between women who are people and women who are something less does not only rest in the vague contrast between the women of the comedies and the women of the tragedies. There are more explicit examples of women who may earn love, like Helena who pursued her husband through military brothels to marriage and honour in All’s Well, and women who must lose it through inertia and gormlessness, like Cressida. In The Taming of the Shrew Shakespeare contrasted two types in order to present a theory of marriage which is demonstrated by the explicit valuation of both kinds of wooing in the last scene. Kate is a woman striving for her own existence in a world where she is a stale, a decoy to be bid for against her sister’s higher market value, so she opts out by becoming unmanageable, a scold. Bianca has found the women’s way of guile and feigned gentleness to pay better dividends: she woos for herself under false colours, manipulating her father and her suitors in a perilous game which could end in her ruin. Kate courts ruin in a different way, but she has the uncommon good fortune to find Petruchio who is man enough to know what he wants and how to get it. He wants her spirit and her energy because he wants a wife worth keeping. He tames her like he might a hawk or a high-mettled horse, and she rewards him with strong sexual love and fierce loyalty. Lucentio finds himself saddled with a cold, disloyal woman, who has no objection to humiliating him in public. The submission of a woman like Kate is genuine and exciting because she has something to lay down, her virgin pride and individuality: Bianca is the soul of duplicity, married without earnestness or good-will. Kate’s speech at the close of the play is the greatest defence of Christian monogamy ever written. It rests upon the role of a husband as protector and friend, and it is valid because Kate has a man who is capable of being both, for Petruchio is both gentle and strong (it is a vile distortion of the play to have him strike her ever). The message is probably twofold: only Kates make good wives, and then only to Petruchios; for the rest, their cake is dough.

worry about you, Caretta. You are a strong woman, true enough. But strength without flexibility makes one hard. Come September, when those fierce winds blow in from the sea, those hardwoods crack, splinter and fall. But the pliant palms are resilient and they bend with the wind. This is the secret of a Southern woman. Strength, resilience and beauty. We are never hard.

I’d never yearned for possession the way I did with Dante. I was a woman who valued my independence fiercely so I’d always thought that the idea of belonging to someone else was a direct contradiction to my independence. I’d been wrong. Owning the heart of a man like Dante Salvatore didn’t make me weak, it made me strong. I was proud to be seen as his because I was proud of the man he was and the woman he helped me to become.

Auntie has shown me how to be a strong Nish kwe—full of love, anger, humor, sorrow, and joy. Not as something perfect: She is a woman who is complex and sometimes exhausted, but mostly brave. She loves imperfect people fiercely.