Rita Mae Brown Quotes

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four people is suffering from a mental illness. Look at your 3 best friends. If they're ok, then it's you.

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.

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.

One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.

The only queer people are those who don't love anybody.

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

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

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

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

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

When God made man she was practicing.

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

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

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

Writers will happen in the best of families.

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

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

He unzipped his pants and his brains fell out.

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts.

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

He tried to drown his troubles but they knew how to swim.

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

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

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

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

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

It doesn't matter to me. We're still cousins in our own way. Blood's just something old people talk about to make you feel bad.

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

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

Normal is the average of deviance.

I think the reason I choose the comic approach so often is because it's harder, therefore affording me the opportunity to show off.

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

High heels were invented by a woman who had once been kissed on the forehead.

Sex makes monkeys out of all of us. If you don’t give in to it, you wind up a cold, unfeeling bastard. If you do, you spend the rest of your life picking up the pieces. . . .

I believe that we often disguise pain through ritual and it may be the only solace we have.

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.

Oh well, maybe the only beauty left in cities is in the oil slicks on the road and maybe there isn't any beauty left in the people who live in these places.

All this overt heterosexuality amused me. If only they knew.

I hate the telephone. I think the lowest circle of hell is reserved for Alexander Graham Bell.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

My tombstone is going to say: 'Born: Yes. Died: Yes.

Oh great, you too. So now I wear this label 'Queer' emblazoned across my chest. Or I could always carve a scarlet 'L' on my forehead. Why does everyone have to put you in a box and nail the lid on it? I don't know what I am—polymorphous and perverse. Shit. I don't even know if I'm white. I'm me. That's all I am and all I want to be. Do I have to be something?

You gay?” “Oh, I wouldn’t say I was gay. I’d just say I was enchanted.” “Me too.

I'd never seen men hold each other. I thought the only things they were allowed to do was shake hands or fight.

I began to wonder if girls could marry girls, because I was sure I wanted to marry Leota and look in her green eyes forever. But I would only marry her if I didn't have to do the housework. I was certain of that. But if Leota really didn't want to do it either, I guessed I'd do it. I'd do anything for Leota.

No government has the right to tell its citizens when or whom to love. The only queer people are those who don't love anybody.

You have nothing to fear in life, not you, not anyone, because every bad thing you think can happen will- but not always in the form you imagine

Everybody gets married. It's something you have to do, like dying.

Well, we're just All-American queers.

I had never thought I had much in common with anybody. I had no mother, no father, no roots, no biological similarities called sisters and brothers. And for a future I didn't want a split-level home with a station wagon, pastel refrigerator, and a houseful of blonde children evenly spaced through the years. I didn't want to walk into the pages of McCall's magazine and become the model housewife. I didn't even want a husband or any man for that matter. I wanted to go my own way. That's all I think I ever wanted, to go my own way and maybe find some love here and there. Love, but not the now and forever kind with chains around your vagina and a short circuit in your brain. I'd rather be alone.

Do you think it's possible that love multiples? We're taught to think it divides. There's only so much to go around, like diamonds. It multiples.

I'm not an addictive personality, I just like getting high, that's all.

That's all I think I ever wanted, to go my own way and maybe find some love here and there.

A peacefulness follows any decision, even the wrong one.

If you can't raise consciousness at least raise hell

In school they told us the president was the best man in the whole country but I knew my father was the best man in the whole country; the country didn't know it, that's all.

As for loving woman, I have never understood why some people had a fit. I still don't. It seems fine to me. If an individual is productive responsible, and energetic, why should her choice in a partner make such a fuss? The government is only too happy to take my tax money and yet they uphold legislation that keeps me a second class citizen. Surely, there should be a tax break for those of us who are robbed of full and equal participation and protection in the life of our nation.

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 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.

No one is ever safe. So why not live as much as you can?

The tax code will never be simplified in our lifetime because it’s not about taxes; it’s about congressmen distributing the pork.

I don’t care whether they like me or not. Everybody’s stupid, that’s what I think. I care if I like me, that’s what I truly care about.

The most revolutionary thing you can do is to be yourself, to speak your truth, to open your arms to life including the pain. Passion. Find your passions. The

My voice rings down through thousands of years to coil around your body and give you strength, you who have wept in direct sunlight, who have hungered in invisible chains, tremble to the cadence of my legacy: An army of lovers shall not fail.

No one remembers her beginnings. Mothers and aunts tell us about infancy and early childhood, hoping we won't forget the past when they had total control over our lives and secretly praying that because of it, we'll include them in our future.

Whenever a young thing wants to be free minus serious thought, she gets pregnant and then gets married. Voilà!

Because the real worship is not one man, one vote, it’s one man, one dollar. Commerce drives democracy, not vice versa.

I think love is the wild card of existence. Don’t rule it out. Old as we are, it may still get thrown on the table.

Anyway, how did I know the president was for real? I never saw him, just pictures in the paper and they can make those up. How do you know someone is real if you don't see him?

Course I didn't want to be a doctor. I was going to be president only I kept it secret.

I'm queer. But why would people get so upset about something that feels so good? Me being a queer can't hurt anyone, why should it be such a terrible thing? Makes no sense.

When the corpses are cleared no new order will emerge. Power, society, relationships, will descend in all their confusion on a new generation. The old, who started this conflagration, will retreat, worn out, the survivors and the young will continue the dance.

At least Jennifer was beyond being tormented by itchy dresses.

Then you stay in that root cellar until Jesus comes back.

You can't pee in front of little Lord Jesus, go back to the hills.

humans are much more like sheep than cats. They’re easily led and they don’t look where they’re going until it’s too late.

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

The reward for conformity was that everyone liked you except yourself.

I hope there is a special hell for people who mistreat animals.

The most revolutionary thing you can do is to be yourself, to speak your truth, to open your arms to life including the pain. Passion. Find your passions.

what would happen if she'd open her eyes and see only dark and feel satin from the coffin? That'd scare her enough to kill her all over again. How do they know dead people don't open their eyes and see? they don't know nothing about being dead.

You’ll see. You think you can do what boys do but you’re going to be a nurse, no two ways about it. It doesn’t matter about brains, brains don’t count. What counts is whether you’re a boy or a girl.

I wished I could get up in the morning and look at the day the way I used to when I was a child. I wished I could walk down the streets and not hear those constant, abrasive sounds from the mouths of the opposite sex. Damn, I wished the world would let me be myself.

That's animals, same thing doesn't happen to people does it? That's gonna happen to me someday, too? No, not me. I ain't dying. I don't care what they say, I ain't dying. I'm not lying on my back under the ground in everlasting darkness. Not me. I'm not closing my eyes. If I close my eyes, I might not open them.

единственная красота, что осталась в городах - это бензиновые разводы на шоссе

When I got my library card, that's when my life began.

You might say the first American Revolution was against the tyranny of King George. The second American Revolution must be against the tyranny of selfishness.” This

you can't be a doctor. Only boys can be doctors. Leroy's got to be the doctor." "You're full of shit, Spiegelglass, Leroy's dumber than I am. I got to be doctor because I'm the smart one and being a girl don't matter." "You'll see. You think you can do what boys do but you're going to be a nurse, no two ways about it. It doesn't matter about brains, brains don't count. What counts is whether you're a boy or a girl." I hauled off and belted her one.

April 23, 1813: “Political problems do not primarily concern truth or falsehood. They relate to good or evil. What in the result is likely to prove evil, is politically false; that which is productive or good, politically is true.

I have always believed a window into a person’s true nature is how they treat animals, children, and the elderly. A person who mistreats animals isn’t worth knowing. A person who mistreats children—especially those who abuse and kill them—should be shot without wasting any taxpayer money for a trial and for feeding them in prison. When a perpetrator of heinous crimes can live in a climate-controlled environment and eat three meals a day while good people go hungry, something is very wrong. Americans are paying for serial killers, rapists, and child abusers to live better than they do.

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 novels, find a book you do like. Life is too short to be miserable. If you like my novels, I commend your good taste.

Every time you behold the Blue Ridge Mountains, every time you feel a snowflake on your eyelashes, every time you see a frog on a lily pad, every time a friend gives you his hand, Brooks, God loves you. You’re surrounded by His love. We look for it in all the wrong places as we pray for worldly success. We say that must be proof of God’s love. Some people pray not for material success but for an easy life.” He shook his head. “No, even our pains are a sign of His love, for they will lead you to the right path, if you’ll only listen.

INTRODUCTION TO GENDER AND SOCIETY The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir A classic analysis of the Western conception of the woman. Feminism Is for Everybody by bell hooks A primer about the power and potential of feminist action. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Feminism redefined for the twenty-first century. QUEER THEORY AND INTERSECTIONAL FEMINISM Gender Trouble by Judith Butler A classic, and groundbreaking, text about gender and the boundaries of identity. Gender Outlaw by Kate Bornstein A 1990s-era memoir of transition and nonbinary identity. This Bridge Called My Back ed. Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa A collection of essays about the intersections between gender, class, sexuality, and race. Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde A landmark collection of essays and speeches by a lauded black lesbian feminist. The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston A memoir of growing up as a Chinese American woman. MODERN HISTORY How We Get Free: Black Feminism and the Combahee River Collective ed. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor A history of the Combahee River Collective, a group of radical black feminists operating in the 1960s and 1970s. And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts Investigative reportage about the beginning of the AIDS crisis. A Queer History of the United States by Michael Bronski An LGBT history of the United States, from 1492 to the present. CONTEMPORARY QUESTIONS Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus by Vanessa Grigoriadis An exploration of the effects of the sexual revolution in American colleges. The End of Men: And the Rise of Women by Hanna Rosin A book about the shifting power dynamics between men and women. Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay Essays about the author’s experiences as a woman and our cultural understanding of womanhood. All the Single Ladies by Rebecca Traister An investigation into the lives of twenty-first-century unmarried women. GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN FICTION Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown A groundbreaking lesbian coming-of-age novel, originally published in 1973. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin A classic of morality and desire, set in 1950s Paris, about an American man and his relationship with an Italian bartender. Angels in America by Tony Kushner A Pulitzer Prize–winning play about the Reagan-era AIDS epidemic. Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson A coming-of-age and coming-out novel about a woman growing up in an evangelical household.