Jean Webster Quotes

When I used to say I wanted to play at Wimbledon, they used to laugh in my face and say, 'What are you talking about, you're from Hyderabad, and you're supposed to... cook.' That's one of the notions that people have in this side of the world - it is our 'culture', within quotes, you know, to say what a woman can or cannot do.

There is a sense that women are more anchored than men in our society.

I think jazz guitar isn't very ladylike in general. Not that it shouldn't be.

I just think that culturally, women - we're all human beings - but at least we don't have our masculinity to prove.

There’s this issue you’re not allowed to discuss: that women are needy. Men can go for longer, more happily, without women. That’s the truth. We don’t, as little boys, play at being married - we try to avoid it for as long as possible. Meanwhile women are out there hunting for husbands.

In society it is etiquette for ladies to have the best chairs and get handed things. In the home the reverse is the case. This is why ladies are more sociable than gentlemen.

She only maintains that it is possible, under some circumstances, for a lady to murder her husband; but that a woman who wears ankle-strap shoes and smokes on the street corner, though she may be a joy to all who know her and have devoted her life to charity, could never qualify as a lady.

I suppose the most important thing, the heaviest single factor in one's life, is whether one's born male or female. In most societies it determines one's expectations, activities, outlook, ethics, manners - almost everything. Vocabulary. Semiotic usages. Clothing. Even food. Women... women tend to eat less... It's extremely hard to separate the innate differences from the learned ones. Even where women participate equally with men in the society, they still after all do all the childbearing, and so most of the child-rearing.

Men hand out cigars. Women 'hand out' babies. And thus the world, for thousands of years, has gone round.

A woman, if you're Most Intelligent or Most Likely to Succeed, that's an embarrassing thing. Or something that's not considered attractive, and I think that's what we need to change.

Men subsequently put whatever is newly learned or experienced to use as a plowshare, perhaps even as a weapon: but women immediately include it among their ornaments.

All is summed up in the prayer which a young female human is said to have uttered recently: "O God, make me a normal twentieth-century girl!" Thanks to our labors, this will mean increasingly: "Make me a minx, a moron, and a parasite.

We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are. If we have sons, we don't mind knowing about our sons' girlfriends, but our daughters' boyfriends? God forbid. But of course when the time is right, we expect those girls to bring back the perfect man to be their husband.

I was not much used to women except for mothers. Everything I did, they did different.

Men always marry younger girls, but sometimes when a women who's very mature marries a younger man, she's criticized. It needs to be corrected.

Don't you know that boys don't cry?' Adam grinned. 'Shall I tell you something I've only recently discovered,' I replied, not attempting to hide the tears rolling down my face and not the least bit ashamed of them. 'Boys don't cry, but real men do.

We still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs and wants to belong exclusively in the home.

We knew the pain of winter rushing up your skirt, and the ache of keeping your knees together in class, and how drab and infuriating it was to jump rope while the boys played baseball. We could never understand why the girls cared so much about being mature, or why they felt compelled to compliment each other.

I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.

I can't say I really see much difference between my son and daughters except that my girls will occasionally make me a sandwich and my son won't.

Since women are better at producing babies, presumably Nature has given men some talent to compensate. But for the moment I can't think of it.

Men have broad and large chests, and small narrow hips, and more understanding than women, who have but small and narrow breasts, and broad hips, to the end they should remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children.

Hogamus, higamous Man is polygamous Higamus, hogamous Woman monogamous.

Women aren't embarrassed when they buy men's pajamas, but a man buying a nightgown acts as though he were dealing with a dope peddler.

The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think.