Complex Women Quotes

Here are examples of real women who have done real things: good, bad, and in between. We're expanding not just the definition of the female or feminine hero, but also villains and more complex, nuanced female characters. Too often I hear men say, "I don't know how to write women." Here you go, here are five incredible women you can use to inspire your own stories.

I like complicated women. I like women with strength and contradictions.

I love flawed female characters, duking it out.

The heroines in 'That's What She Said' are flawed, messy, damaged, hilarious and culpable and not really concerned about being acceptable to the audience in any traditional sense, which for me is what makes them all the more gorgeous. And the fearless truth of that is what makes it funny.

Who is it can read a woman?

It's important to say women are complex.

Look at history; all the interesting women were deeply flawed.

I'm not so fascinated by these ingenue roles. I tend to gravitate towards women in plays or shows or films that are more chaotic or have something dire going on.

I like playing interesting, complicated women.

I'm really attracted to playing strong, outspoken, sassy women. And I love playing characters who have a little bit of conflict or who can be controversial.

Pristine vulnerability is just so boring to me. The performances that I love are ones like Gena Rowland's in 'A Woman Under the Influence,' where women are allowed to be messy and imperfect. It's that kind of woman that has always inspired me to seek roles that are a little out of the box. I just haven't always had the opportunity to do them.

You've got to pick your roles really carefully. It's a lot more fun to play a layered woman, than just someone where what you see is what you get, by far.

My heroines, more often than not, are the ones who are troubled and resistant.

I'm interested in playing lots of different complex women.

It was just very interesting to me that certain types of women inspire people's imagination, and all of them were very difficult women.

I think it's really rare to see women on television who are brilliant, selfish, vain, fallible - and I feel like I have all those capacities in myself, so it's good to see people in the media representing all of those things.

I'm glad that cinema is catching up to what television has known for a while: That three-dimensional, complex women get an audience engaged as much as the men.

I would love to see women be able to be powerful, complex, smart, opinionated and taken seriously, even if they are beautiful. Even more, I would love to see women held to different standards, other than the superficial ones that we're held to.

'Girls' is one of my favorite shows of all time. One of the things I love about Lena Dunham and Jenji Kohan and Shonda Rhimes is that they're all willing to show complex, amazing women.

Many women have many sides to their personality.

Men are simpler than you imagine my sweet child. But what goes on in the twisted, tortuous minds of women would baffle anyone.

Independent film is taking risks in all areas. It's not just about complicated women.

It was the first time, in the West Wing, I had ever read anyone write a Southerner properly. Because Southern women, in my opinion, are complicated and are equally feminine and driven. That's kind of an unusual combination and people usually tend to get it wrong.

The beauty of 'The Hunger Games' and also 'Game of Thrones,' in fairness, both projects have really complex, three-dimensional, contradictory, strong women... The writing of female characters is extraordinary and equal to the men.

The characters that I want to play are interesting women. I don't care if they're good women or bad women or vulnerable women or women with a lot of faults or women that we dislike intensely who are malicious.