Woman Earns Quotes

I will find you," he whispered in my ear. "I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you - then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest." His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me. Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.

If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what have you given her? It's no more than a fact and it has cost you nothing. But if you tell an ugly woman that she is beautiful, you offer her the great homage of corrupting the concept of beauty. To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. She's earned it, it's a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake - and that is a real tribute of love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your integrity and your invaluable self-esteem.

As a woman you are better off in life earning your own money. You couldn't prevent your husband from leaving you or taking another wife, but you could have some of your dignity if you didn't have to beg him for financial support.

Fat’ is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her. I mean, is ‘fat’ really the worst thing a human being can be? Is ‘fat’ worse than ‘vindictive’, ‘jealous’, ‘shallow’, ‘vain’, ‘boring’ or ‘cruel’? Not to me; but then, you might retort, what do I know about the pressure to be skinny? I’m not in the business of being judged on my looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my brain… I went to the British Book Awards that evening. After the award ceremony I bumped into a woman I hadn’t seen for nearly three years. The first thing she said to me? ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!’ ‘Well,’ I said, slightly nonplussed, ‘the last time you saw me I’d just had a baby.’ What I felt like saying was, ‘I’ve produced my third child and my sixth novel since I last saw you. Aren’t either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?’ But no – my waist looked smaller! Forget the kid and the book: finally, something to celebrate! I’ve got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don’t want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I’d rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before ‘thin’. And frankly, I’d rather they didn’t give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons.

Trevor, remember a man is not determined by how much he earns. You can still be a man of the house and earn less than your woman. Being a man is not what you have, it's who you are. Being more of a man doesn't mean your woman has to be less than you.

Chasing a person doesn’t give you value or build values in you. You earn your value by chasing morality and practicing dignity.

Our men think earning money and ordering around others is where power lies. They don't think power is in the hands of the woman who takes care of everyone all day long, and gives birth to their children.

A man has to find a good woman, and when he finds her he has to win her love. then he has to earn her respect. then he has to cherish her trust. and then he has to, like, go on doing that for as long as they live. Until they both die. That's what it's all about. That's the most important thing in the world. That's what a man is, Yaar. A man is truly a man when he wins the love of a good woman, earns her respect, and keeps her trust. Until you do that, you're not a man.

A man is truly a man when he wins the love of a good woman, earns her respect, and keeps her trust. Until you can do that, you're not a man.

I'm sure that if woman laid out the rules- requirements- early on, and let her intended know that he could either rise up to those requirements, or just move on. A directive like that signals to a man that you are not a plaything-someone to be used and discarded. It tells him that what you have- your benefits- are special, and that you need time to get to know him and his ways to decide if he DESERVES them. The man who is willing to put in the time and meet the requirments is the one you want to stick around, because tthat guy is making a conscious decision that he, too, has no interest in playing games and will do what it takes to not only stay on the job, but also get promoted and be the proud beneficiary of your benefits. And you, in the meantime, win the ultimate prize of maintaing your dignity and self-esteem, and earning the respect of the man who recognized that you were worth the wait.

No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Here’s a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages 1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didn’t stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. 2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5. 3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on “Bright Eyes.” 4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank. 5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13. 6) Nadia Comăneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14. 7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15. 8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil. 9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19. 10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961. 11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936. 12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23 13) Issac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24 14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record 15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity 16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France 17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures “David” and “Pieta” by age 28 18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world 19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter 20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean 21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind 22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest 23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech “I Have a Dream." 24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics 25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight 26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions. 27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon. 28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" 29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas 30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger 31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States 32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out. 33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games" 34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out. 35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa. 36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president. 37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels. 38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat". 40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived 41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise 42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out 43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US 44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats 45) Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became President

I was not supposed to love you. The woman had said that—and then she died. She should not have loved him, and he should not have dared to love her. He deserved this darkness, and once the invisible boundary shattered and the waiting thing pounced, infiltrating and filling him … he’d have earned it.

A queen is wise. She has earned her serenity, not having had it bestowed on her but having passer her tests. She has suffered and grown more beautiful because of it. She has proved she can hold her kingdom together. She has become its vision. She cares deeply about something bigger than herself. She rules with authentic power.

Judd figured he must have done something right along the way. How else could a rebel arrow have earned the right to call this amazing woman his own? Even if it was a mistake, too damn bad. He was never giving her up.

I damn well know a good thing when I see it and babe all I’ve ever been able to fuckin’ see is you. Not many chances a man has in his lifetime to do right, to earn the love of a good woman, and to get a taste of true freedom. And babe, for me, you’re all fuckin’ three. Have been for a good while now.

When woman work outside the home and share breadwinning duties, couples are more likely to stay together. In fact, the risk of divorce reduces by about half when a wife earns half the income and a husband does half the housework.

Told him that if a woman fights with that kind of passion and makes you work that hard to earn even a smile, then that’s the kind of woman you want by your side in and out of the bedchamber.

Shall I tell you the secret of true love? her father once asked her. A friend of mine liked to tell me that women love flowers. He had many flirtations, but he never found a wife. Do you know why? Because women may love flowers, but only one woman loves the scent of gardenias in late summer that remind her of her grandmother's porch. Only one woman loves apple blossoms in a blue cup. Only one woman loves wild geraniums. That's Mama! Inej had cried. Yes. Mama loves wild geraniums because no other flower has quite the same color, and she claims that when she snaps the stem and puts a sprig behind her ear, the whole world smells like summer. Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you'll meet a boy who will learn your favourite flower, your favourite song, your favourite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart.

Never show anger at slight, tell nothing. Earn respect from everyone by deeds, not Words. Respect the members of your Blood Family. Gambling was Recreation, not a way to earn a Living. Love your Father, your Mother, your Sister but beware of Loving any other Woman than your Wife. And a Wife was a woman who bore your Children. And once that happened to You, your Life was Forfeit to give them their daily bread

Not being assaulted is not a privilege to be earned through the judicious application of personal safety strategies. A woman should be able to walk down the street at 4 in the morning in nothing but her socks, blind drunk, without being assaulted, and I, for one, am not going to do anything to imply that she is in any way responsible for her own assault if she fails to Adequately Protect Herself. Men aren’t helpless dick-driven maniacs who can’t help raping a vulnerable woman. It disrespects EVERYONE.

Why did men always find it necessary to comment on whether or not a woman’s exterior pleased them? She knew she was beautiful. No need to constantly restate it, as if doing so would earn one points in a game.

Snake Street is an area I should avoid. Yet that night I was drawn there as surely as if I had an appointment.  The Snake House is shabby on the outside to hide the wealth within. Everyone knows of the wealth, but facades, like the park’s wall, must be maintained. A lantern hung from the porch eaves. A sign, written in Utte, read ‘Kinship of the Serpent’. I stared at that sign, at that porch, at the door with its twisted handle, and wondered what the people inside would do if I entered. Would they remember me? Greet me as Kin? Or drive me out and curse me for faking my death?  Worse, would they expect me to redon the life I’ve shed? Staring at that sign, I pissed in the street like the Mearan savage I’ve become. As I started to leave, I saw a woman sitting in the gutter. Her lamp attracted me. A memsa’s lamp, three tiny flames to signify the Holy Trinity of Faith, Purity, and Knowledge.  The woman wasn’t a memsa. Her young face was bruised and a gash on her throat had bloodied her clothing. Had she not been calmly assessing me, I would have believed the wound to be mortal. I offered her a copper.  She refused, “I take naught for naught,” and began to remove trinkets from a cloth bag, displaying them for sale. Her Utte accent had been enough to earn my coin. But to assuage her pride I commented on each of her worthless treasures, fighting the urge to speak Utte. (I spoke Universal with the accent of an upper class Mearan though I wondered if she had seen me wetting the cobblestones like a shameless commoner.) After she had arranged her wares, she looked up at me. “What do you desire, O Noble Born?” I laughed, certain now that she had seen my act in front of the Snake House and, letting my accent match the coarseness of my dress, I again offered the copper.  “Nay, Noble One. You must choose.” She lifted a strand of red beads. “These to adorn your lady’s bosom?”             I shook my head. I wanted her lamp. But to steal the light from this woman ... I couldn’t ask for it. She reached into her bag once more and withdrew a book, leather-bound, the pages gilded on the edges. “Be this worthy of desire, Noble Born?”  I stood stunned a moment, then touched the crescent stamped into the leather and asked if she’d stolen the book. She denied it. I’ve had the Training; she spoke truth. Yet how could she have come by a book bearing the Royal Seal of the Haesyl Line? I opened it. The pages were blank. “Take it,” she urged. “Record your deeds for study. Lo, the steps of your life mark the journey of your soul.”   I told her I couldn’t afford the book, but she smiled as if poverty were a blessing and said, “The price be one copper. Tis a wee price for salvation, Noble One.”   So I bought this journal. I hide it under my mattress. When I lie awake at night, I feel the journal beneath my back and think of the woman who sold it to me. Damn her. She plagues my soul. I promised to return the next night, but I didn’t. I promised to record my deeds. But I can’t. The price is too high.

I’ve fought in three campaigns,” he began. “In seven pitched battles. In countless raids and skirmishes and desperate defences, and bloody actions of every kind. I’ve fought in the driving snow, the blasting wind, the middle of the night. I’ve been fighting all my life, one enemy or another, one friend or another. I’ve known little else. I’ve seen men killed for a word, for a look, for nothing at all. A woman tried to stab me once for killing her husband, and I threw her down a well. And that’s far from the worst of it. Life used to be cheap as dirt to me. Cheaper. “I’ve fought ten single combats and I won them all, but I fought on the wrong side and for all the wrong reasons. I’ve been ruthless, and brutal, and a coward. I’ve stabbed men in the back, burned them, drowned them, crushed them with rocks, killed them asleep, unarmed, or running away. I’ve run away myself more than once. I’ve pissed myself with fear. I’ve begged for my life. I’ve been wounded, often, and badly, and screamed and cried like a baby whose mother took her tit away. I’ve no doubt the world would be a better place if I’d been killed years ago, but I haven’t been, and I don’t know why.” He looked down at his hands, pink and clean on the stone. “There are few men with more blood on their hands than me. None, that I know of. The Bloody-Nine they call me, my enemies, and there’s a lot of ’em. Always more enemies, and fewer friends. Blood gets you nothing but more blood. It follows me now, always, like my shadow, and like my shadow I can never be free of it. I should never be free of it. I’ve earned it. I’ve deserved it. I’ve sought it out. Such is my punishment.

If you are a woman, if you're a person of colour, if you are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, if you are a person of size, if you are a person od intelligence, if you are a person of integrity, then you are considered a minority in this world. And it's going to be really hard to find messages of self-love and support anywhere. Especially women's and gay men's culture. It's all about how you have to look a certain way or else you're worthless. You know when you look in the mirror and you think 'oh, I'm so fat, I'm so old, I'm so ugly', don't you know, that's not your authentic self? But that is billions upon billions of dollars of advertising, magazines, movies, billboards, all geared to make you feel shitty about yourself so that you will take your hard earned money and spend it at the mall on some turn-around creme that doesn't turn around shit. When you don't have self-esteem you will hesitate before you do anything in your life. You will hesitate to go for the job you really wanna go for, you will hesitate to ask for a raise, you will hesitate to call yourself an American, you will hesitate to report a rape, you will hesitate to defend yourself when you are discriminated against because of your race, your sexuality, your size, your gender. You will hesitate to vote, you will hesitate to dream. For us to have self-esteem is truly an act of revolution and our revolution is long overdue.

A foolish woman believes that loyalty is automatic. A wise woman knows that it is earned.

I remember the rules, rules that were never spelled out but every woman knew: Don't open your door to a stranger, even if he says he is the police. Make him slide his ID under the door. Don't stop on the road to help a motorist pretending to be in trouble. Keep the locks on and keep going. If anyone whistles, don't turn to look. Don't go into a laundromat, by yourself, at night. I think about laundromats. What I wore to them: shorts, jeans, jogging pants. What I put into them: my own clothes, my own soap, my own money, money I had earned myself. I think about having such control. Now we walk along the same street, in red pairs, and not man shouts obscenities at us, speaks to us, touches us. No one whistles. There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from.

He'd call me false and faithless and I've always had a weakness for those two words; next to cruel, they're the nicest words for a woman to hear, and not so hard to earn.

(...)The ride is not over but if I can keep my Club together and find a sweet, feisty woman who's got my back and enough to her that she'll stay there, holding me up not dragging me down, I figure I'd find my way to beauty eventually. And I'd find absolution because I'd know, I earned the love of that woman, a woman who's got so much to her it'll take years to dig down and find the heart of her, that would be my reward." Ohmigod. Ohmigod! Ohmigod! Did he just say that? Did. He. Just. Say that? "And you told me," Tack continued, his face coming closer, "I had that when I first met you.

We do not have to spend money and go hungry and struggle and study to become sensual; we always were. We need not believe we must somehow earn good erotic care; we always deserved it. Femaleness and its sexuality are beautiful. Women have long secretly suspected as much. In that sexuality, women are physically beautiful already; superb; breathtaking. Many, many men see this way too. A man who wants to define himself as a real lover of women admires what shows of her past on a woman's face, before she ever saw him, and the adventures and stresses that her body has undergone, the scars of trauma, the changes of childbirth, her distinguishing characteristics, the light is her expression. The number of men who already see in this way is far greater than the arbiters of mass culture would lead us to believe, since the story they need to tell ends with the opposite moral.

Only a foolish woman would allow her man to earn his living as a moving target.

When a destitute mother starts earning an income, her dreams of success invariably center around her children. A woman's second priority is the household. She wants to buy utensils, build a stronger roof, or find a bed for herself and her family. A man has an entirely different set of priorities. When a destitute father earns extra income, he focuses more attention on himself. Thus money entering a household through a woman brings more benefits to the family as a whole.

I'll tell you how the sun rose A ribbon at a time... It's a living book, this life; it folds out in a million settings, cast with a billion beautiful characters, and it is almost over for you. It doesn't matter how old you are; it is coming to a close quickly, and soon the credits will roll and all your friends will fold out of your funeral and drive back to their homes in cold and still and silence. And they will make a fire and pour some wine and think about how you once were . . . and feel a kind of sickness at the idea you never again will be. So soon you will be in that part of the book where you are holding the bulk of the pages in your left hand, and only a thin wisp of the story in your right. You will know by the page count, not by the narrative, that the Author is wrapping things up. You begin to mourn its ending, and want to pace yourself slowly toward its closure, knowing the last lines will speak of something beautiful, of the end of something long and earned, and you hope the thing closes out like last breaths, like whispers about how much and who the characters have come to love, and how authentic the sentiments feel when they have earned a hundred pages of qualification. And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?

Have you done enough today to earn the right to live tomorrow?

Do you suppose you will look the same when you are an old woman as you do now? Most folk have three faces—the face they get when they’re children, the face they own when they’re grown, and the face they’ve earned when they’re old. But when you live as long as I have, you get many more. I look nothing like I did when I was a wee thing of thirteen. You get the face you build your whole life, with work and loving and grieving and laughing and frowning.

Fraya says it means you’re a woman.” “Why we have to bleed to earn it?” Flossie slammed her fists on the mattress. “What happens when we get old and it stops? What then? We stop bein’ a woman? Ain’t the blood that defines us. It’s our soul.

A woman's income appeal is a bell-shaped curve: men do not want to date low-earning women, but once a woman starts earning too much, they seem to be scared off.

Money should come slowly over a period of time. Then only does one respect it. Whether it’s a man or a woman, earning too much money in too short a period is as bad as excess liquor.

The problem with being a woman is that you never know what a NO will get you. Is it going to earn me an understanding nod and an okay, well, have a great night, it was nice talking to you? Or will it get me a you entitled bitch, what, you think you’re too fucking good for me?

It's really very simple. If you tell a beautiful woman that she is beautiful, what have you given her? It's no more than a fact and it has cost you nothing. But if you tell an ugly woman she is beautiful, you offer her great homage of corrupting the concept of beauty. To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. She's earned it, it's a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake - and that is a real tribute of love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your integrity and your invaluable self-esteem... What's love, darling, if it's not self-sacrifice?

In today's world, if a woman earns her own living and lives by her own terms, she is a superhero.

In order to be successful as a woman, teach your daughter to never apologize for her success. Men never have to apologize for it, why should the women who earned it? - Raising A Strong Daughter: What Fathers Should Know by Finlay Gow JD and Kailin Gow MA

I figure I’d find my way to beauty eventually. And I’d find absolution because I’d know, I earned the love of that woman, a woman who’s got so much to her it’ll take years to dig down and find the heart of her, that would be my reward.” Ohmigod. Ohmigod! Ohmigod!

The Cold Within" Six humans trapped in happenstance In dark and bitter cold, Each one possessed a stick of wood, Or so the story's told. The first woman held hers back For of the faces around the fire, She noticed one was black. The next man looking across the way Saw not one of his church, And couldn't bring himself to give The fire his stick of birch. The third one sat in tattered clothes He gave his coat a hitch, Why should his log be put to use, To warm the idle rich? The rich man just sat back and thought Of the wealth he had in store, And how to keep what he had earned, From the lazy, shiftless poor. The black man's face bespoke revenge As the fire passed from sight, For all he saw in his stick of wood Was a chance to spite the white. The last man of this forlorn group Did naught except for gain, Giving only to those who gave, Was how he played the game. The logs held tight in death's still hands Was proof of human sin, They didn't die from the cold without, They died from the cold within.

For all her grumbling, she actually loves being a woman, pains and all. She just wishes she’d been born into a world that let those pains earn a little goddamn space.

Growing up, I never knew a relaxed woman. Successful women? Yes. Productive women? Plenty. Anxious and afraid and apologetic women? Heaps of them. But relaxed women? At-ease women? Women who don't dissect their days into half hour slots of productivity? Women who prioritize rest and pleasure and play? Women who aren't afraid to take up space in the world? Women who give themselves unconditional permission to relax? Without guilt? Without apology? Without feeling like they need to earn it? I'm not sure I've ever met a woman like that. But I would like to become one.

Education is very important. The more education a woman has the more she is looked down upon. Nothing comes easy for a woman, and that is why she is tough. She has to earn everything she works hard for—that’s fine, and honestly, it isn’t an issue. Hard work grooms a woman to be a powerful force.

The gender pay gap in Korea is the highest among the OECD countries. According to 2014 data, women working in Korea earn only 63 percent of what men earn; the OECD average percentage is 84.13 Korea was also ranked as the worst country in which to be a working woman, receiving the lowest scores among the nations surveyed on the glass-ceiling index by the British magazine The Economist.14 8 “Repeated Protests against Tuition Increase,” Yonhap News, April 6, 2011.

To love a woman for her virtues is meaningless. She's earned it, it's a payment, not a gift. But to love her for her vices is a real gift, unearned and undeserved. To love her for her vices is to defile all virtue for her sake - and that is a real tribute of love, because you sacrifice your conscience, your reason, your integrity and your invaluable self-esteem.

I will earn the woman's love, if I have lost the girl's.

We are Trailblazers! Our Shero’s used their brains to spark the flame. We, as women, have to learn we cannot always do everything alone; coming together as one produces greatness as we lay the foundation together. All women are Trailblazers who’ve put in the work, and as we all know, nothing comes easy. Therefore, the time and hard work we’ve invested is ours that we earned; because it most definitely wasn’t given. Trailblazers, we must own our lives, filter out what doesn’t serve us, and stand firm for what we believe in. Our voices are beautiful and powerful!

It's not about who loves her. It's about how you love her. You have to learn the difference between what she says, and what she means. Don't just make her laugh. Try and understand why she smiles. Plenty have told her she's beautiful, but can you make her feel that way too? There's a difference, see. Compliments might cage her, while empowerment sets her free. My God, what matters to her is not just who flatters her. There's a language to her love you'll need to learn. Speak it true, and I promise you, the best of her, is what you'll earn.

She remained silent. There was nothing left to say. He'd said it all the night before. He had to end it. He could never leave his wife. And, in fact, she had known this. Although she loved him - and truly she did - he wasn't hers. He belonged to his wife. She'd earned him. It didn't matter that he was her first love or that she was his passion. It didn't matter that they had loved one another for more than half their lives. It didn't matter that he had married his wife on the rebound. It didn't matter that he didn't love the woman. It didn't even matter that they had turned into some soap-opera cliche. He was married to someone else and that meant that she was leftovers and destined to remain on the periphery in the shadow of another woman's marriage. But no more. She was well and truly sick of it. 

I’ve always wondered why women are expected to deny their true age. Why? To be a woman of 50 and up is a badge of triumph—a hard-earned certificate that says you survived the shallowness, the violence, the meanness, and the caprice of a male-dominated society without losing your mind!

Ah, the beautiful Celine,” Desmund said, earning a smile from her. “Did I ever tell you that you remind me of a courtesan I knew once in King George’s court? She was stunning to look upon and much sought after.” Celine toyed with her hair. “You flatter me, Desmund. Was she someone of noble birth?” “No, but I believe she serviced a duke or two.” I choked on my water. Tristan reached over to pat my back, while smiling graciously at the outraged woman.

Money might give people all the control and power in the world they can buy, but it doesn’t give them what’s most important. Designer dresses doesn’t give a woman beauty if she’s not amazing in her heart. Diamonds won’t give her dignity if she has no good in her soul. Education doesn’t make a man worthy. A last name won’t garner someone respect unless they can work for it. Those are things we earn by being who we are. You are wonderful.

I always believed that women have rights and that there are some women that are intelligent enough to claim those rights. There are some others that are stupid enough not to. It is as cut-and dried as that. It doesn't matter if you are a woman or not; in this life, to earn your place you have to fight for it.

Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: "Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all." Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her the reward she has earned, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

If I had a daughter, here's what I'd tell her: One day, when you've worked hard for what you want, when people see that you are confident and intelligent and that you recognize your own self-worth, when you take care of yourself, support yourself, and stand up for yourself, that is the day that the world will call you "a cruel and selfish bitch." It's a tough title to earn and you should be and proud of it.

Right-wing women have surveyed the world: they find it a dangerous place. They see that work subjects them to more danger from more men; it increases the risk of sexual exploitation. They see that creativity and originality in their kind are ridiculed; they see women thrown out of the circle of male civilization for having ideas, plans, visions, ambitions. They see that traditional marriage means selling to one man, not hundreds: the better deal. They see that the streets are cold, and that the women on them are tired, sick, and bruised. They see that the money they can earn will not make them independent of men and that they will still have to play the sex games of their kind: at home and at work too. They see no way to make their bodies authentically their own and to survive in the world of men. They know too that the Left has nothing better to offer: leftist men also want wives and whores; leftist men value whores too much and wives too little. Right-wing women are not wrong. They fear that the Left, in stressing impersonal sex and promiscuity as values, will make them more vulnerable to male sexual aggression, and that they will be despised for not liking it. They are not wrong. Right-wing women see that within the system in which they live they cannot make their bodies their own, but they can agree to privatized male ownership: keep it one-on-one, as it were. They know that they are valued for their sex— their sex organs and their reproductive capacity—and so they try to up their value: through cooperation, manipulation, conformity; through displays of affection or attempts at friendship; through submission and obedience; and especially through the use of euphemism—“femininity, ” “total woman, ” “good, ” “maternal instinct, ” “motherly love. ” Their desperation is quiet; they hide their bruises of body and heart; they dress carefully and have good manners; they suffer, they love God, they follow the rules. They see that intelligence displayed in a woman is a flaw, that intelligence realized in a woman is a crime. They see the world they live in and they are not wrong. They use sex and babies to stay valuable because they need a home, food, clothing. They use the traditional intelligence of the female—animal, not human: they do what they have to to survive.

What stories these are, what lessons they teach us. That the redemption of mankind comes through woman, for she takes man's seed, nurtures it within her, and brings it forth into the world. That love is often a quest, to be earned and deserved before it is given. That love can be lusty and earthy, as well as emotional and spiritual... . But above all that love is forever.

Women should not feel obliged towards any men for eternity. They earned this privilege by gathering berries, digging roots, picking wild rice, and chewing the skin to make it soft for 999 thousand years, while the men were having fun in the open chasing deer and fighting among themselves.

I will find you," he whispered in my ear. "I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you--then that is my punishment,which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest." His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me. "Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.

What is a princess, and what is a queen? Why is the princess often a pejorative description of a certain type of woman, and the word queen hardly ever applied to women at all? A princess is a girl who knows that she will get there, who is on her way perhaps but is not yet there. She has power but she does not yet wield it responsibly. She is indulgent and frivolous. She cries but not yet noble tears. She stomps her feet and does not know how to contain her pain or use it creatively. A queen is wise. She has earned her serenity, not having had it bestowed on her but having passed her tests. She has suffered and grown more beautiful because of it. She has proved she can hold her kingdom together. She has become its vision. She cares deeply about something bigger than herself. She rules with authentic power.

For me the real evil of masturbation would be that it takes an appetite which, in lawful use, leads the individual out of himself to complete (and correct) his own personality in that of another (and finally in children and even grandchildren) and turns it back: sends the man back into the prison of himself, there to keep a harem of imaginary brides. And this harem, once admitted, works against his ever getting out and really uniting with a real woman. For the harem is always accessible, always subservient, calls for no sacrifices or adjustments, and can be endowed with erotic and psychological attractions which no real woman can rival. Among those shadowy brides he is always adored, always the perfect lover: no demand is made on his unselfishness, no mortification ever imposed on his vanity. In the end, they become merely the medium through which he increasingly adores himself . . . . And it is not only the faculty of love which is thus sterilized, forced back on itself, but also the faculty of imagination. The true exercise of imagination, in my view, is (a) To help us to understand other people (b) To respond to, and, some of us, to produce, art. But it has also a bad use: to provide for us, in shadowy form, a substitute for virtues, successes, distinctions etc. which ought to be sought outside in the real world—e.g. picturing all I’d do if I were rich instead of earning and saving. Masturbation involves this abuse of imagination in erotic matters (which I think bad in itself) and thereby encourages a similar abuse of it in all spheres. After all, almost the main work of life is to come out of our selves, out of the little, dark prison we are all born in. Masturbation is to be avoided as all things are to be avoided which retard this process. The danger is that of coming to love the prison.

What do you think of human intelligence?" asked Mavis Pellington lamely. "Of whose intelligence in particular?" asked Tobermory coldly. "Oh, well, mine for instance," said Mavis with a feeble laugh. "You put me in an embarrassing position," said Tobermory, whose tone and attitude certainly did not suggest a shred of embarrassment. "When your inclusion in this house-party was suggested Sir Wilfrid protested that you were the most brainless woman of his acquaintance, and that there was a wide distinction between hospitality and the care of the feeble-minded. Lady Blemley replied that your lack of brain-power was the precise quality which had earned you your invitation, as you were the only person she could think of who might be idiotic enough to buy their old car. You know, the one they call 'The Envy of Sisyphus,' because it goes quite nicely up-hill if you push it.

Well. I’m not a poet, I’m just a woman. And as a woman I have no way to make money, not enough to earn a living and support my family. Even if I had my own money, which I don’t, it would belong to my husband the minute we were married. If we had children they would belong to him not me. They would be his property. So don’t sit there and tell me that marriage isn’t an economic proposition, because it is. It may not be for you but it most certainly is for me.

But why give a man something it's so hard to earn? In that respect women are really thick. They're the daughters of rigidity. They need a man to feel secure but they don't realize that the one thing they should be afraid of is men. They don't know how to run their lives. They have to sacrifice themselves for the sake of someone else. Whores are the worst, patron, believe me. They throw their lives away working for some pimp, smile when he beats them, feel proud when he's well dressed, with his gold teeth and rings on his fingers, and when he goes off and takes up with a woman half their age they forgive him everything because 'he's a man.

As I lie on my couch by the fireplace, looking out from my hillside home at the snow leading down to the ocean, with the right woman in my arms, a glass of Bordeaux beside me and a Puccini opera on the stereo system, knowing that I’ve earned the pleasure I feel, I’m so glad I didn’t let someone else decide what’s best for me.

I saw that what had appeared to me to be not worth twenty francs when it had been offered to me for twenty francs in the house of ill fame, where it was then for me simply a woman desirous of earning twenty francs, might be worth more than a million, more than one's family, more than all the most coveted positions in life if one had begun by imagining her to embody a strange creature, interesting to know, difficult to seize and to hold.

Barbara is on what is called the woman's trip to the exclusion of almost everything else. When she and Tom and Max and Sharon need money, Barbara will take a part-time job, modeling or teaching kindergarten, but she dislikes earning more than ten or twenty dollars a week. Most of the time she keeps house and bakes. "Doing something that shows your love that way," she says, "is just about the most beautiful thing I know." Whenever I hear about the woman's trip, which is often, I think a lot about nothin'-says-lovin'-like-something-from-the-oven and the Feminine Mystique and how it is possible for people to be the unconscious instruments of values they would strenuously reject on a conscious level, but I do not mention this to Barbara.

But her angry feminism had set as hard as concrete during years of living alongside the tough, hardworking, dirt-poor women of London’s East End. Men often told a fairy tale in which there was a division of labor in families, the man going out to earn money, the woman looking after home and children. Reality was different. Most of the women Ethel knew worked twelve hours a day and looked after home and children as well. Underfed, overworked, living in hovels, and dressed in rags, they could still sing songs and laugh and love their children. In Ethel’s view one of those women had more right to vote than any ten men.

Access to your husband's money might feel good. But the comparative study of human society and our primate relatives shows that such access can't buy you the power you get by being the one who earns it. And knowing this, or even having an inkling of it, just sensing the disequilibrium, the abyss that separates your version of power from your man's, could keep a thinking woman up at night.

In his Petersburg world people were divided into two quite opposite sorts. One--the inferior sort: the paltry, stupid, and, above all, ridiculous people who believe that a husband should live with the one wife to whom he is married, that a girl should be pure, a woman modest, and a man, manly, self controlled and firm; that one should bring up one's children to earn their living, should pay one's debts, and other nonsense of the kind. These were the old-fashioned and ridiculous people. But there was another sort of people: the real people to which all his set belonged, who had above all to be well-bred, generous, bold, gay, and to abandon themselves unblushingly to all their passions and laugh at everything else.

In the spacious love of God, our souls can lie down and rest. This love from him is not something we must struggle for, earn, or fear to lose. It is bestowed. He has bestowed it upon us. He has chosen us. And nothing can separate us from his love. Not even we, ourselves. We are made for such a love. Our hearts yearn to be loved intimately, personally, and yes, romantically. We are created to be the object of desire and affection of one who is totally and completely in love with us. And we are.

her mother in order to win her love and approval. The daughter doesn’t realize that the behaviors that will please her mother are entirely arbitrary, determined only by her mother’s self-seeking concern. Most damaging is that a narcissistic mother never approves of her daughter simply for being herself, which the daughter desperately needs in order to grow into a confident woman. A daughter who doesn’t receive validation from her earliest relationship with her mother learns that she has no significance in the world and her efforts have no effect. She tries her hardest to make a genuine connection with Mom, but fails, and thinks that the problem of rarely being able to please her mother lies within herself. This teaches the daughter that she is unworthy of love. The daughter’s notion of mother-daughter love is warped; she feels she must “earn” a close connection by seeing to Mom’s needs and constantly doing what it takes to please her. Clearly, this isn’t the same as feeling loved. Daughters of narcissistic mothers sense that their picture of love is distorted, but they don’t know what the real picture would look like. This early, learned equation of love—pleasing another with no return for herself—has far-reaching, negative effects on a daughter’s future romantic relationships,

A reporter once asked me why I think progressive men who earn significantly less than their breadwinning wives still won't quit their jobs to take care of their children. Why do they still hold on to their careers, even if taking care of the children would make more financial sense because the cost of childcare is higher than their net salary? I think I know the answer to that now, and it sucks. Women are not expected to live a life for themselves. When women dedicate their lives to children, it is deemed a worthy and respectable choice. When women dedicate themselves to a passion outside of the family that doesn't involve worshiping their husbands or taking care of their kids, they're seen as selfish, cold, or unfit mothers. But when a man spends hours grueling over a craft, profession, or project, he's admired and seen as a genius. And when a man finds a woman who worships him, who dedicates her life to serving him, he's lucky. But when a man dedicates himself to taking care of his children it's seen as a last resort. That it must be because he ran out of other options. That it's plan Z. That it's an indicator of his inability to provide for his family. Basically, that he's a fucking loser. I think it's one of the most important falsehoods we need to shatter when talking about women's rights.

Take a drawing by Matisse, a simple curve of a leg or a shoulder. Is there a basis, at the beginning when he starts drawing his curve? There isn’t. This is what I’m trying to say. And that’s what comprises the originality of Max Ophuls, which he acquired a little bit at a time, because in Liebelei, in Letter from an Unknown Woman, in his American films, it’s not there. It’s a freedom that is earned and that is found, that isn’t applied. On a basic level, it’s neither better nor worse as a way of making a film. But there’s something extremely original that we found so satisfying back in the day and that continues to satisfy me now … There’s a kind of pure cinema of that era – you might even call it experimental – which has disappeared. There’s no literature…not that there’s no text or dialogue, but there’s no pre-literature. (Jean-Luc Godard in conversation with Marcel Ophuls, 2002)

Their time of talking and belittling us this way has expired. They tried, but they failed to realize we are strong and we will never give up. Their time of thinking they can touch us inappropriately and we will keep quiet has expired. No! We will rise up and bring the world to its feet. Trust me… We will be seen and heard! Their time of trying to break us down has expired. No! We can move mountains! Their time of pointing their fingers at us and putting F.E.A.R (False Evidence Appearing Real) into our minds by making us believe it is our fault has expired. No! It is not our fault. It never was! Their time of nasty insults has expired. They fail to realize we catch every nasty word and throw back the insult to show we can give as good as we get. Their time of preying off vulnerable women who have to “make a deal” to get a higher position they earned has expired. No! Your “man”ipulation has no effect. We, as women, have full ownership of our minds, bodies, and souls.

The Red Lamp, the army brothel, was around the corner in the main street. I had seen a queue of a hundred and fifty men waiting outside the door, each to have his short turn with one of the three women in the house. My servant, who had stood in the queue, told me that the charge was ten francs a man – about eight shillings at that time. Each woman served nearly a battalion of men every week for as long as she lasted. According to the assistant provost-marshal, three weeks was the usual limit: ‘after which she retired on her earnings, pale but proud.

All Mad" 'He is mad as a hare, poor fellow, And should be in chains,' you say, I haven't a doubt of your statement, But who isn't mad, I pray? Why, the world is a great asylum, And the people are all insane, Gone daft with pleasure or folly, Or crazed with passion and pain. The infant who shrieks at a shadow, The child with his Santa Claus faith, The woman who worships Dame Fashion, Each man with his notions of death, The miser who hoards up his earnings, The spendthrift who wastes them too soon, The scholar grown blind in his delving, The lover who stares at the moon. The poet who thinks life a paean, The cynic who thinks it a fraud, The youth who goes seeking for pleasure, The preacher who dares talk of God, All priests with their creeds and their croaking, All doubters who dare to deny, The gay who find aught to wake laughter, The sad who find aught worth a sigh, Whoever is downcast or solemn, Whoever is gleeful and gay, Are only the dupes of delusions— We are all of us—all of us mad.

The only difference between having an affair here and having an affair there was that the American men would always ended up losing half of his estates over a woman he was infatuated just as much as the next tramp who would come his way, while Japanese men would only earn more respect from their subordinates through the possession of much younger women, as a sign of prowess and affluence, while their wives at home, as if there were rule books distributed nationally on the “proper” marriage etiquette for all young Japanese women to read before they enter into the matrimony, would turn a blind eye on their disloyalty quietly.

Poor things, she thought - do they have to spend all this energy just to surround me? It seemed pitiful that these automatons should be created and wasted, never knowing more than a minor fragment of the pattern in which they were involved, to learn and follow through insensitively a tiny step in the great dance which was seen close up as the destruction of Natalie, and far off, as the end of the world. They had all earned their deaths, Natalie thought, by a job well done - the woman in the seat ahead who had never needed a face, had perhaps been given for her part only the back of a head and a dark cloth coat collar, the man in the seat next to Natalie, a full-dress part, even to the watchchain and the grimy shirt collar - had not this same man, as a matter of fact, been close to Natalie in the station, memorising her face so that although when next they met she would not know him, he would be able to identify her, winking and gesturing with his head to the others, murmuring perhaps to the bus driver, 'That one, there.

Why was he doing this? So that life could continue in the metro? Right. So that they could grow mushrooms and pigs at VDNKh in the future, and so that his stepfather and Zhenkina’s family lived there in peace, so that people unknown to him could settle at Alekseevskaya and at Rizhskaya, and so that the uneasy bustle of trade at Byelorusskaya didn’t die away. So that the Brahmins could stroll about Polis in their robes and rustle the pages of books, grasping the ancient knowledge and passing it on to subsequent generations. So that the fascists could build their Reich, capturing racial enemies and torturing them to death, and so that the Worm people could spirit away strangers’ children and eat adults, and so that the woman at Mayakovskaya could bargain with her young son in the future, earning herself and him some bread. So that the rat races at Paveletskaya didn’t end, and the fighters of the revolutionary brigade could continue their assaults on fascists and their funny dialectical arguments. And so that thousands of people throughout the whole metro could breathe, eat, love one another, give life to their children, defecate and sleep, dream, fight, kill, be ravished and betrayed, philosophize and hate, and so that each could believe in his own paradise and his own hell . . . So that life in the metro, senseless and useless, exalted and filled with light, dirty and seething, endlessly diverse, so miraculous and fine could continue.

I am woman and woman is beautiful. We are expected to be beautiful, so I will be what people don’t expect. They don’t expect intelligence, they don’t expect grace. I am strong, and even when others have the ability to physically overpower me, mentally, I am stronger. I am a queen on a throne, and a place next to me must be earned. When I find my king, his power doesn’t erase my own. My crown is not a man’s to repossess. I was born in regality. I am kind, but naivety does not dwell within me. I am woman. I am the origin. Everything begins and ends with me. No man is worthy of my worth. I cannot be bought. I will not sell myself short. I do not give discounts. I am woman. I demand respect. I respect my dignity. My presence is a revocable gift, rented with effort and good intention. I am woman.

Style still matters, for at least three reasons. First, it ensures that writers will get their message across, sparing readers from squandering their precious moments on earth deciphering opaque prose. When the effort fails, the result can be calamitous-as Strunk and White put it, "death on the highway caused by a badly worded road sign, heartbreak among lovers caused by a misplaced phrase in a well-intentioned letter, anguish of a traveler expecting to be met at a railroad station and not being met because of a slipshod telegram." Governments and corporations have found that small improvements in clarity can prevent vast amounts of error, frustration, and waste, and many countries have recently made clear language the law of the land. Second, style earns trust. If readers can see that a writer cares about consistency and accuracy in her prose, they will be reassured that the writer cares about those virtues in conduct they cannot see as easily. Here is how one technology executive explains why he rejects job applications filled with errors of grammar and punctuation: "If it takes someone more than 20 years to notice how to properly use it's, then that's not a learning curve I'm comfortable with." And if that isn't enough to get you to brush up your prose, consider the discovery of the dating site OkCupid that sloppy grammar and spelling in a profile are "huge turn-offs." As one client said, "If you're trying to date a woman, I don't expect flowery Jane Austen prose. But aren't you trying to put your best foot forward?" Style, not least, adds beauty to the world. To a literate reader, a crisp sentence, an arresting metaphor, a witty aside, an elegant turn of phrase are among life's greatest pleasures. And as we shall see in the first chapter, this thoroughly impractical virtue of good writing is where the practical effort of mastering good writing must begin.

You're a handsome one, aren't you?" she cooed. "So strong and sturdy. What a good hasp you must have; what a firm sense of your purpose. But you've been holding your place for so long. You can't be expecting to stay closed forever. Why, that isn't fair! The people who put you here don't appreciate you the way I do. They don't understand how difficult it is to be a lock, and do the things you do. I would appreciate you always. I would never leave you alone in the rain to rust." "Are we watching a woman try to seduce a lock?" asked Andrew. "I'm not objecting if we are -- your kink is okay and all -- but I just want to confirm that everyone else is seeing what I'm seeing, here." The lock clicked as it released, popping open. "No, we're watch a woman successfully seduce a lock, said Jeffery. "Fascinating." "Her love life must involve a lot of handcuffs," I said, earning myself a snort from Ciara as she reached out and removed the padlock from its place on the door. "Don't ask about mine and I won't ask about yours," she said, making the lock disappear into her pocket.

Our minds are creative and knowledgeable. Yet time and time again, our needs and wants fell on deaf ears. We were told we weren’t good enough. We were abused mentally, physically, and emotionally. We were told with nasty sarcastic remarks at times, and here and there maybe a laugh that made the insult worse; “It would be your word against mine, and guess who they are going believe? Not you.” One by one we took a chance to speak up, but our voices weren’t heard. They tried to make us feel threatened; as if we were going to lay down and be stepped on like shit on the bottom on their shoe. We interrupted their comfort zone and showed them their time was up! Their time of talking and belittling us this way has expired. They tried, but they failed to realize we are strong and we will never give up. Their time of thinking they can touch us inappropriately and we will keep quiet has expired. No! We will rise up and bring the world to its feet. Trust me… We will be seen and heard! Their time of trying to break us down has expired. No! We can move mountains! Their time of pointing their fingers at us and putting F.E.A.R (False Evidence Appearing Real) into our minds by making us believe it is our fault has expired. No! It is not our fault. It never was! Their time of nasty insults has expired. They fail to realize we catch every nasty word and throw back the insult to show we can give as good as we get. Their time of preying off vulnerable women who have to “make a deal” to get a higher position they earned has expired. No! Your “man”ipulation has no effect. We, as women, have full ownership of our minds, bodies, and souls.

There are men who carefully manoeuvre a large limousine out of the garage at eight o'clock every morning. Others leave an hour earlier, traveling in a middle-class sedan. Still others leave when it is not yet light, wearing overalls and carrying lunch boxes, to catch buses, subways, or trains to factories or building sites. By a trick of fate, it is always the latter, the poorest, who are exploited by the least attractive women. For, unlike women (who have an eye for money), men notice only woman's external appearance. Therefore, the more desirable women in their own class are always being snatched away from under their noses by men who happen to earn more. No matter what a particular man does or how he spends his day, he has one thing in common with all other men - he spends it in a degrading manner. And he himself does not gain by it. It is not his own livelihood that matters: he would have to struggle far less for that, since luxuries do not mean anything to him anyway it is the fact that he does it for others that makes him so tremendously proud. He will undoubtedly have a photograph of his wife and children on his desk, and will miss no opportunity to hand it around. No matter what a man's job may be - bookkeeper, doctor, bus driver, or managing director - every moment of his life will be spent as a cog in a huge and pitiless system - a system designed to exploit him to the utmost, to his dying day. (...) We have long ceased to play the games of childhood. As children, we became bored quickly and changed from one game to another. A man is like a child who is condemned to play the same game for the rest of his life.

Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time. Women have had less intellectual freedom than the sons of Athenian slaves.(...) That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own. However, thanks to the toils of those obscure women in the past, of whom I wish we knew more, thanks, curiously enough, to two wars, the Crimean which let Florence Nightingale out of her drawing-room, and the European War which opened the doors to an average woman some sixty years later, these evils are in the way to be bettered. Otherwise you [the female students listening to the talk] would not be here tonight, and your chance of earning five hundred pounds a year, precarious as I am afraid that it still is, would be minute in the extreme. A Room of One's Own Chapter 6

Shall I tell you the secret of true love?" her father once asked her. "A friend of mine liked to tell me that women love flowers. He had many flirtations, but he never found a wife. Do you know why? Because women may love flowers, but only one woman loves the scent of gardenias in late summer that remind her of her grandmother's porch. Only one woman loves apple blossoms in a blue cup. Only one woman loves wild geraniums." "That's Mama!" Inej had cried. "Yes, Mama loves wild geraniums because no other flower has quite the same color, and she claims that when she snaps the stem and puts a sprig behind her ear, the whole world smells like summer. Many boys will bring you flowers. But someday you'll meet a boy who will learn your favorite flower, your favorite song, your favorite sweet. And even if he is too poor to give you any of them, it won't matter because he will have taken the time to know you as no one else does. Only that boy earns your heart.

There she was. Roarke stood in the office doorway, took a few enjoyable minutes to just watch her. She had such a sense of purpose, such a sense of focus on that purpose. It had appealed to him from the first instant he’d seen her, across a sea of people at a memorial for the dead. He found it compelling, the way those whiskey-colored eyes could go flat and cold as they were now. Cop’s eyes. His cop’s eyes. She’d taken off her jacket, tossed it over a chair, and still wore her weapon harness. Which meant she’d come in the door and straight up. Armed and dangerous, he thought. It was a look, a fact of her, that continually aroused him. And her tireless and unwavering dedication to the dead—to the truth, to what was right—had, and always would, amaze him. She’d set up her murder board, he noted, filling it with grisly photos, with reports, notes, names. And somewhere along the line in her day, she’d earned herself a black eye. He’d long since resigned himself to finding the woman he loved bruised and bloody at any given time. Since she didn’t look exhausted or ill, a shiner was a relatively minor event. She sensed him. He saw the moment she did, that slight change of body language. And when her eyes shifted from her comp screen to his, the cold focus became an easy, even casual warmth. That, he thought, just that was worth coming home for.

After a long and happy life, I find myself at the pearly gates (a sight of great joy; the word for “pearl” in Greek is, by the way, margarita). Standing there is St. Peter. This truly is heaven, for finally my academic questions will receive answers. I immediately begin the questions that have been plaguing me for half a century: “Can you speak Greek? Where did you go when you wandered off in the middle of Acts? How was the incident between you and Paul in Antioch resolved? What happened to your wife?” Peter looks at me with some bemusement and states, “Look, lady, I’ve got a whole line of saved people to process. Pick up your harp and slippers here, and get the wings and halo at the next table. We’ll talk after dinner.” As I float off, I hear, behind me, a man trying to gain Peter’s attention. He has located a “red letter Bible,” which is a text in which the words of Jesus are printed in red letters. This is heaven, and all sorts of sacred art and Scriptures, from the Bhagavad Gita to the Qur’an, are easily available (missing, however, was the Reader’s Digest Condensed Version). The fellow has his Bible open to John 14, and he is frenetically pointing at v. 6: “Jesus says here, in red letters, that he is the way. I’ve seen this woman on television (actually, she’s thinner in person). She’s not Christian; she’s not baptized - she shouldn’t be here!” “Oy,” says Peter, “another one - wait here.” He returns a few minutes later with a man about five foot three with dark hair and eyes. I notice immediately that he has holes in his wrists, for when the empire executes an individual, the circumstances of that death cannot be forgotten. “What is it, my son?” he asks. The man, obviously nonplussed, sputters, “I don’t mean to be rude, but didn’t you say that no one comes to the Father except through you?” “Well,” responds Jesus, “John does have me saying this.” (Waiting in line, a few other biblical scholars who overhear this conversation sigh at Jesus’s phrasing; a number of them remain convinced that Jesus said no such thing. They’ll have to make the inquiry on their own time.) “But if you flip back to the Gospel of Matthew, which does come first in the canon, you’ll notice in chapter 25, at the judgment of the sheep and the goats, that I am not interested in those who say ‘Lord, Lord,’ but in those who do their best to live a righteous life: feeding the hungry, visiting people in prison . . . ” Becoming almost apoplectic, the man interrupts, “But, but, that’s works righteousness. You’re saying she’s earned her way into heaven?” “No,” replies Jesus, “I am not saying that at all. I am saying that I am the way, not you, not your church, not your reading of John’s Gospel, and not the claim of any individual Christian or any particular congregation. I am making the determination, and it is by my grace that anyone gets in, including you. Do you want to argue?” The last thing I recall seeing, before picking up my heavenly accessories, is Jesus handing the poor man a Kleenex to help get the log out of his eye.

I reach for her. 'I'm so sorry I had to keep...' My words die on my tongue as she steps back, avoiding me. 'Not happening.' A world of hurt flashes in those hazel eyes, and I fucking wither. 'Just because I believe you and am willing to fight with you doesn't mean I'll trust you with my heart again. and I can't be with someone I don't trust.' Something in my chest crumples. 'I've never lied to you, Violet. Not once. I never will.' She walks over to the window and looks down, then slowly turns back to me. 'It's not even that you kept this from me. I get it. It's the ease with which you did it. The ease with which I let you into my hear and didn't get the same in return.' She shakes her head, and I see it there, the love, but it's masked behind defences I foolishly forced her to build. I love her. Of course I love her. But if I tell her now, she'll think I'm doing it for all the wrong reasons, and honestly, she'd be right. I'm not going to lose the only woman I've ever fallen for without a fight. 'You're right. I kept secrets,' I admit, pressing forward again, taking step after step until I'm less than a foot from her. I palm the glass on both sides of her head, loosely caging her in, but we both know she could walk away if she wanted. But she doesn't move. 'It took me a long time to trust you, a long time to realise I fell for you.' Someone knocks, I ignore it. 'Don't say that.' She lifts her chin, but I don't miss the way she glances at my mouth. 'I fell for you.' I lower my head and look straight into her gorgeous eyes. She might be rightfully pissed, but she sure as Malek isn't fickle. 'And you know what? You might not trust me anymore, but you still love me.' Her lips part, but she doesn't deny it. 'I gave you my trust for free once, and once is all you get.' She masks the hurt with a quick blink. Never again. Those eyes will never reflect hurt I've inflicted ever again. 'I fucked up by not telling you sooner, and I won't even try to justify my reasons. But now I'm trusting you with my life- with everyone's lives.' I've risked it all by just bringing her here instead of taking her body back to Basgiath. 'I'll tell you anything you want to know and everything you don't. I'll spend every single day of my life earning back your trust.' I'd forgotten what it felt like to be loved, really, truly, loved- it'd been so many years since Dad died. And mom... Not going there. But then Violet gave me those words, gave me her trust, her heart, and I remembered. I'll be damned if I don't fight to keep them. 'And if it's not possible?' 'You still love me. It's possible.' Gods, do I ache to kiss her, to remind her exactly what we are together, but I won't, not until she asks. 'I'm not afraid of hard work, especially not when I know just how sweet the rewards are.. I would rather lose this entire war than live without you, and if that means I have to prove myself, over and over, then I'll do it. You gave me your heart, and I'm keeping it.' She already owns mine, even if she doesn't realise it.

They asked me to tell you what it was like to be twenty and pregnant in 1950 and when you tell your boyfriend you’re pregnant, he tells you about a friend of his in the army whose girl told him she was pregnant, so he got all his buddies to come and say, “We all fucked her, so who knows who the father is?” And he laughs at the good joke…. What was it like, if you were planning to go to graduate school and get a degree and earn a living so you could support yourself and do the work you loved—what it was like to be a senior at Radcliffe and pregnant and if you bore this child, this child which the law demanded you bear and would then call “unlawful,” “illegitimate,” this child whose father denied it … What was it like? […] It’s like this: if I had dropped out of college, thrown away my education, depended on my parents … if I had done all that, which is what the anti-abortion people want me to have done, I would have borne a child for them, … the authorities, the theorists, the fundamentalists; I would have born a child for them, their child. But I would not have born my own first child, or second child, or third child. My children. The life of that fetus would have prevented, would have aborted, three other fetuses … the three wanted children, the three I had with my husband—whom, if I had not aborted the unwanted one, I would never have met … I would have been an “unwed mother” of a three-year-old in California, without work, with half an education, living off her parents…. But it is the children I have to come back to, my children Elisabeth, Caroline, Theodore, my joy, my pride, my loves. If I had not broken the law and aborted that life nobody wanted, they would have been aborted by a cruel, bigoted, and senseless law. They would never have been born. This thought I cannot bear. What was it like, in the Dark Ages when abortion was a crime, for the girl whose dad couldn’t borrow cash, as my dad could? What was it like for the girl who couldn’t even tell her dad, because he would go crazy with shame and rage? Who couldn’t tell her mother? Who had to go alone to that filthy room and put herself body and soul into the hands of a professional criminal? – because that is what every doctor who did an abortion was, whether he was an extortionist or an idealist. You know what it was like for her. You know and I know; that is why we are here. We are not going back to the Dark Ages. We are not going to let anybody in this country have that kind of power over any girl or woman. There are great powers, outside the government and in it, trying to legislate the return of darkness. We are not great powers. But we are the light. Nobody can put us out. May all of you shine very bright and steady, today and always.

I’m not a man, I can’t earn a living, buy new things for my family. I have acne and a small peter. I’m not a man. I don’t like football, boxing and cars. I like to express my feeling. I even like to put an arm around my friend’s shoulder. I’m not a man. I won’t play the role assigned to me- the role created by Madison Avenue, Playboy, Hollywood and Oliver Cromwell, Television does not dictate my behavior. I’m not a man. Once when I shot a squirrel I swore that I would never kill again. I gave up meat. The sight of blood makes me sick. I like flowers. I’m not a man. I went to prison resisting the draft. I do not fight when real men beat me up and call me queer. I dislike violence. I’m not a man. I have never raped a woman. I don’t hate blacks. I do not get emotional when the flag is waved. I do not think I should love America or leave it. I think I should laugh at it. I’m not a man. I have never had the clap. I’m not a man. Playboy is not my favorite magazine. I’m not a man. I cry when I’m unhappy. I’m not a man. I do not feel superior to women I’m not a man. I don’t wear a jockstrap. I’m not a man. I write poetry. I’m not a man. I meditate on peace and love. I’m not a man. I don’t want to destroy you

Why do women find it honorable to dismiss ourselves? Why do we decide that denying our longing is the responsible thing to do? Why do we believe that what will thrill and fulfill us will hurt our people? Why do we mistrust ourselves so completely? Here’s why: Because our culture was built upon and benefits from the control of women. The way power justifies controlling a group is by conditioning the masses to believe that the group cannot be trusted. So the campaign to convince us to mistrust women begins early and comes from everywhere. When we are little girls, our families, teachers, and peers insist that our loud voices, bold opinions, and strong feelings are “too much” and unladylike, so we learn to not trust our personalities. Childhood stories promise us that girls who dare to leave the path or explore get attacked by big bad wolves and pricked by deadly spindles, so we learn to not trust our curiosity. The beauty industry convinces us that our thighs, frizz, skin, fingernails, lips, eyelashes, leg hair, and wrinkles are repulsive and must be covered and manipulated, so we learn to not trust the bodies we live in. Diet culture promises us that controlling our appetite is the key to our worthiness, so we learn to not trust our own hunger. Politicians insist that our judgment about our bodies and futures cannot be trusted, so our own reproductive systems must be controlled by lawmakers we don’t know in places we’ve never been. The legal system proves to us again and again that even our own memories and experiences will not be trusted. If twenty women come forward and say, “He did it,” and he says, “No, I didn’t,” they will believe him while discounting and maligning us every damn time. And religion, sweet Jesus. The lesson of Adam and Eve—the first formative story I was told about God and a woman—was this: When a woman wants more, she defies God, betrays her partner, curses her family, and destroys the world. We weren’t born distrusting and fearing ourselves. That was part of our taming. We were taught to believe that who we are in our natural state is bad and dangerous. They convinced us to be afraid of ourselves. So we do not honor our own bodies, curiosity, hunger, judgment, experience, or ambition. Instead, we lock away our true selves. Women who are best at this disappearing act earn the highest praise: She is so selfless.

Her mother, an unshapely, chubby-cheeked creature from the rural gentry of Styria, permanently lost her hair at the age of forty after being treated for influenza by her husband, and prematurely withdrew from society. She and her husband were able to live in the Gentzgasse thanks to her mother's fortune, which derived from the family estates in Styria and then devolved upon her. She provided for everything, since her husband earned nothing as a doctor. He was a socialite, what is known as a beau, who went to all the big Viennese balls during the carnival season and throughout his life was able to conceal his stupidity behind a pleasingly slim exterior. Throughout her life Auersberger's mother-in-law had a raw deal from her husband, but was content to accept her modest social station, not that of a member of the nobility, but one that was thoroughly petit bourgeois. Her son-in-law, as I suddenly recalled, sitting in the wing chair, made a point of hiding her wig from time to time--whenever the mood took him--both in the Gentzgasse and at the Maria Zaal in Styria, so that the poor woman was unable to leave the house. It used to amuse him, after he had hidden her wig, to drive his mother-in-law up the wall, as they say. Even when he was going on forty he used to hide her wigs--by that time she has provided herself with several--which was a symptom of his sickness and infantility. I often witnessed this game of hide-and-seek at Maria Zaal and in the Gentzgasse, and I honestly have to say that I was amused by it and did not feel in the least bit ashamed of myself. His mother-in-law would be forced to stay at home because her son-in-law had hidden her wigs, and this was especially likely to happen on public holidays. In the end he would throw the wig in her face. He needed his mother-in-law's humiliation, I reflected, sitting in the wing chair and observing him in the background of the music room, just as he needed the triumph that this diabolical behavior brought him.

The Sun King had dinner each night alone. He chose from forty dishes, served on gold and silver plate. It took a staggering 498 people to prepare each meal. He was rich because he consumed the work of other people, mainly in the form of their services. He was rich because other people did things for him. At that time, the average French family would have prepared and consumed its own meals as well as paid tax to support his servants in the palace. So it is not hard to conclude that Louis XIV was rich because others were poor. But what about today? Consider that you are an average person, say a woman of 35, living in, for the sake of argument, Paris and earning the median wage, with a working husband and two children. You are far from poor, but in relative terms, you are immeasurably poorer than Louis was. Where he was the richest of the rich in the world’s richest city, you have no servants, no palace, no carriage, no kingdom. As you toil home from work on the crowded Metro, stopping at the shop on the way to buy a ready meal for four, you might be thinking that Louis XIV’s dining arrangements were way beyond your reach. And yet consider this. The cornucopia that greets you as you enter the supermarket dwarfs anything that Louis XIV ever experienced (and it is probably less likely to contain salmonella). You can buy a fresh, frozen, tinned, smoked or pre-prepared meal made with beef, chicken, pork, lamb, fish, prawns, scallops, eggs, potatoes, beans, carrots, cabbage, aubergine, kumquats, celeriac, okra, seven kinds of lettuce, cooked in olive, walnut, sunflower or peanut oil and flavoured with cilantro, turmeric, basil or rosemary … You may have no chefs, but you can decide on a whim to choose between scores of nearby bistros, or Italian, Chinese, Japanese or Indian restaurants, in each of which a team of skilled chefs is waiting to serve your family at less than an hour’s notice. Think of this: never before this generation has the average person been able to afford to have somebody else prepare his meals. You employ no tailor, but you can browse the internet and instantly order from an almost infinite range of excellent, affordable clothes of cotton, silk, linen, wool and nylon made up for you in factories all over Asia. You have no carriage, but you can buy a ticket which will summon the services of a skilled pilot of a budget airline to fly you to one of hundreds of destinations that Louis never dreamed of seeing. You have no woodcutters to bring you logs for the fire, but the operators of gas rigs in Russia are clamouring to bring you clean central heating. You have no wick-trimming footman, but your light switch gives you the instant and brilliant produce of hardworking people at a grid of distant nuclear power stations. You have no runner to send messages, but even now a repairman is climbing a mobile-phone mast somewhere in the world to make sure it is working properly just in case you need to call that cell. You have no private apothecary, but your local pharmacy supplies you with the handiwork of many thousands of chemists, engineers and logistics experts. You have no government ministers, but diligent reporters are even now standing ready to tell you about a film star’s divorce if you will only switch to their channel or log on to their blogs. My point is that you have far, far more than 498 servants at your immediate beck and call. Of course, unlike the Sun King’s servants, these people work for many other people too, but from your perspective what is the difference? That is the magic that exchange and specialisation have wrought for the human species.

Antidepression medication is temperamental. Somewhere around fifty-nine or sixty I noticed the drug I’d been taking seemed to have stopped working. This is not unusual. The drugs interact with your body chemistry in different ways over time and often need to be tweaked. After the death of Dr. Myers, my therapist of twenty-five years, I’d been seeing a new doctor whom I’d been having great success with. Together we decided to stop the medication I’d been on for five years and see what would happen... DEATH TO MY HOMETOWN!! I nose-dived like the diving horse at the old Atlantic City steel pier into a sloshing tub of grief and tears the likes of which I’d never experienced before. Even when this happens to me, not wanting to look too needy, I can be pretty good at hiding the severity of my feelings from most of the folks around me, even my doctor. I was succeeding well with this for a while except for one strange thing: TEARS! Buckets of ’em, oceans of ’em, cold, black tears pouring down my face like tidewater rushing over Niagara during any and all hours of the day. What was this about? It was like somebody opened the floodgates and ran off with the key. There was NO stopping it. 'Bambi' tears... 'Old Yeller' tears... 'Fried Green Tomatoes' tears... rain... tears... sun... tears... I can’t find my keys... tears. Every mundane daily event, any bump in the sentimental road, became a cause to let it all hang out. It would’ve been funny except it wasn’t. Every meaningless thing became the subject of a world-shattering existential crisis filling me with an awful profound foreboding and sadness. All was lost. All... everything... the future was grim... and the only thing that would lift the burden was one-hundred-plus on two wheels or other distressing things. I would be reckless with myself. Extreme physical exertion was the order of the day and one of the few things that helped. I hit the weights harder than ever and paddleboarded the equivalent of the Atlantic, all for a few moments of respite. I would do anything to get Churchill’s black dog’s teeth out of my ass. Through much of this I wasn’t touring. I’d taken off the last year and a half of my youngest son’s high school years to stay close to family and home. It worked and we became closer than ever. But that meant my trustiest form of self-medication, touring, was not at hand. I remember one September day paddleboarding from Sea Bright to Long Branch and back in choppy Atlantic seas. I called Jon and said, “Mr. Landau, book me anywhere, please.” I then of course broke down in tears. Whaaaaaaaaaa. I’m surprised they didn’t hear me in lower Manhattan. A kindly elderly woman walking her dog along the beach on this beautiful fall day saw my distress and came up to see if there was anything she could do. Whaaaaaaaaaa. How kind. I offered her tickets to the show. I’d seen this symptom before in my father after he had a stroke. He’d often mist up. The old man was usually as cool as Robert Mitchum his whole life, so his crying was something I loved and welcomed. He’d cry when I’d arrive. He’d cry when I left. He’d cry when I mentioned our old dog. I thought, “Now it’s me.” I told my doc I could not live like this. I earned my living doing shows, giving interviews and being closely observed. And as soon as someone said “Clarence,” it was going to be all over. So, wisely, off to the psychopharmacologist he sent me. Patti and I walked in and met a vibrant, white-haired, welcoming but professional gentleman in his sixties or so. I sat down and of course, I broke into tears. I motioned to him with my hand; this is it. This is why I’m here. I can’t stop crying! He looked at me and said, “We can fix this.” Three days and a pill later the waterworks stopped, on a dime. Unbelievable. I returned to myself. I no longer needed to paddle, pump, play or challenge fate. I didn’t need to tour. I felt normal.

I'm going to throw some suggestions at you now in rapid succession, assuming you are a father of one or more boys. Here we go: If you speak disparagingly of the opposite sex, or if you refer to females as sex objects, those attitudes will translate directly into dating and marital relationships later on. Remember that your goal is to prepare a boy to lead a family when he's grown and to show him how to earn the respect of those he serves. Tell him it is great to laugh and have fun with his friends, but advise him not to be "goofy." Guys who are goofy are not respected, and people, especially girls and women, do not follow boys and men whom they disrespect. Also, tell your son that he is never to hit a girl under any circumstances. Remind him that she is not as strong as he is and that she is deserving of his respect. Not only should he not hurt her, but he should protect her if she is threatened. When he is strolling along with a girl on the street, he should walk on the outside, nearer the cars. That is symbolic of his responsibility to take care of her. When he is on a date, he should pay for her food and entertainment. Also (and this is simply my opinion), girls should not call boys on the telephone-at least not until a committed relationship has developed. Guys must be the initiators, planning the dates and asking for the girl's company. Teach your son to open doors for girls and to help them with their coats or their chairs in a restaurant. When a guy goes to her house to pick up his date, tell him to get out of the car and knock on the door. Never honk. Teach him to stand, in formal situations, when a woman leaves the room or a table or when she returns. This is a way of showing respect for her. If he treats her like a lady, she will treat him like a man. It's a great plan. Make a concerted effort to teach sexual abstinence to your teenagers, just as you teach them to abstain from drug and alcohol usage and other harmful behavior. Of course you can do it! Young people are fully capable of understanding that irresponsible sex is not in their best interest and that it leads to disease, unwanted pregnancy, rejection, etc. In many cases today, no one is sharing this truth with teenagers. Parents are embarrassed to talk about sex, and, it disturbs me to say, churches are often unwilling to address the issue. That creates a vacuum into which liberal sex counselors have intruded to say, "We know you're going to have sex anyway, so why not do it right?" What a damning message that is. It is why herpes and other sexually transmitted diseases are spreading exponentially through the population and why unwanted pregnancies stalk school campuses. Despite these terrible social consequences, very little support is provided even for young people who are desperately looking for a valid reason to say no. They're told that "safe sex" is fine if they just use the right equipment. You as a father must counterbalance those messages at home. Tell your sons that there is no safety-no place to hide-when one lives in contradiction to the laws of God! Remind them repeatedly and emphatically of the biblical teaching about sexual immorality-and why someone who violates those laws not only hurts himself, but also wounds the girl and cheats the man she will eventually marry. Tell them not to take anything that doesn't belong to them-especially the moral purity of a woman.