Women Authors From The United States

"The vastness of the universe-and love, the thing that makes the vastness bearable-is out of reach to the arrogant."

"You know, don’t you, that no amount of wishing that this were not the case can make it not the case. No amount of praying that you are not transgendered will make you something other than what you are. No amount of love from anyone will make you fit inside a body that does not match your spirit."

"In the past decade, there has been some fascinating research on the brains of transgender people. What is most remarkable about this work is not that trans women’s brains have been found to resemble those of cisgender women, or that trans men’s brains resemble those of cis men. What the research has found is that the brains of trans people are unique: neither female nor male, exactly, but something distinct."

"But what does that mean, a male brain, or a female brain, or even a transgender one? It’s a fraught topic, because brains are a collection of characteristics, rather than a binary classification of either/or."

"And yet scientists continue to study the brain in hopes of understanding whether a sense of the gendered self can, at least in part, be the result of neurology. A study described by author Francine Russo in Scientific American examined the brains of 39 prepubertal and 41 adolescent boys and girls with gender dysphoria. The experiment examined how these children responded to androstadienone, a pungent substance similar to pheromones, that is known to cause a different response in the brains of men and women. The study found that adolescent boys and girls who described themselves as trans responded like the peers of their perceived gender. (The results were less clear with prepubescent children.)"

"Gender is many things, but one thing it is surely not is a hobby."

"Her mother called to her. She said, "Where are you going, Flora Belle?" Flora didn't answer her. She never answered her mother when she called her Flora Belle. Sometimes she didn't answer her mother when she called her Flora either."

"That was the thing about tragedy. It was just sitting there, keeping you company, waiting. And you had absolutely no idea."

"Not much goes on in the mind of a squirrel. Huge portions of what is loosely termed "the squirrel brain" are given over to one thought: food. The average squirrel cogitation goes something like this: I wonder what there is to eat."

"Anything could happen. Together, she and Ulysses could change the world. Or something."

"Say it, reader. Say the word "quest" out loud. It is an extraordinary word, isn't it? So small and yet so full of wonder, so full of hope.so trthen despererux died i n heaven and in peace"

"Reader, nothing is sweeter in this sad world than the sound of someone you love calling your name. Nothing."

"There is no predicting what kind of sentences you might say, thought Flora. For instance, who would ever think you would shout, "You're going to vacuum up that squirrel!"?"

"If the rat had not looked over his shoulder, perhaps his heart would not have broken. And it is possible, then, that I would not have a story to tell. But, reader, he did look."

"There is those hearts, reader, that never mend again once they are broken. Or if they do mend, they heal themselves is a crooked and lopsided way, as if sewn together by a careless craftsman."

"Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light."

"When you are a king, you may make as many ridiculous laws as you like. That is what being a king is all about."

"Reader, you may ask this question; in fact, you must ask this question: Is it ridiculous for a very small, sickly, big-eared mouse to fall in love with a beautiful human princess named Pea? The answer is... yes. Of course, it's ridiculous. Love is ridiculous."

"And hope is like love... a ridiculous, wonderful, powerful thing."

"Despereaux marveled at his own bravery. He admired his own defiance. And then, reader, he fainted. :("

"The world is dark and light is precious. Come closer, dear reader. You must trust me. I am telling you a story."

"Despereaux looked down at the book, and something remarkable happened. The marks on the pages, the "squiggles" as Merlot referred to them, arranged themselves into shapes. The shapes arranged themselves into words, and the words spelled out a delicious and wonderful phrase: Once upon a time"

"Despereaux did not know it, but he would need, very soon, to be brave himself."

"This counsel Sidney complied with, yet he had to suffer for his folly, for, according to his own account, he was dragged out of bed by the Devil, three times in one night, by his heels. Whether this be true or not, one thing is certain, his contrition of soul was as great as a man could well live through."

"After he had sufficiently humbled himself, he received another license; but the old one was retained, and is now in the hands of Bishop Whitney."

"He then went on and preached a comforting discourse, after which he appointed a council to sit the next day, by which Sidney was tried, for having lied in the name of the Lord. In this council Joseph told him he must suffer for what he had done, that he should be delivered over to the buffetings of Satan, who would handle him as one man handleth another, that the less priesthood he had the better it would be for him, and that it would be well for him to give up his license."

"Hyrum was vexed at this frivolous nonsense, and, taking his hat, he went out of the house, saying, "I'll put a stop to this fuss, pretty quick; I'm going for Joseph." "Oh, don't," said Sister Howe, "for pity's sake, don't go for him. Brother Sidney says the keys of the kingdom are taken from us, and where is the use of bringing Joseph here.""

"Hyrum took a horse, and went immediately to Father Johnson's, for Joseph. He arrived there in the afterpart of the night, and having aroused Joseph, he said, "You must go straight with me to Kirtland; we are having terrible times there, and I want you to come up and see to things.""

"Joseph being informed of the precise situation of affairs, he got a horse of Father Johnson, and started without delay, with Hyrum, for Kirtland. On his arrival there, the brethren were collected for meeting. Joseph went upon the stand, and informed the brethren that they were under a great mistake, that the church had not transgressed; "And, as for the keys of the kingdom," said he, "I, myself, hold the keys of this last dispensation, and will for ever hold them, both in time and in eternity; so set your hearts at rest upon that point, all is right.""

"Sidney Rigdon went immediately to Kirtland, but Joseph remained at Father Johnson's to finish his preparations for a journey, which he contemplated making to Missouri. Immediately after Sidney's arrival at Kirtland, we met for the purpose of holding a prayer-meeting, and, as Sidney had not been with us for some time, we hoped to hear from him upon this occasion. We waited a long time before he made his appearance; at last he came in, seemingly much agitated. He did not go to the stand, but began to pace back and forth through the house. My husband said, "Brother Sidney, we would like to hear a discourse from you to-day." Brother Rigdon replied, in a tone of excitement, "The keys of the kingdom are rent from the church, and there shall not be a prayer put up in this house this day.""

"Oh! no," said Mr. Smith, "I hope not."

"I tell you they are," rejoined Elder Rigdon, "and no man or woman shall put up a prayer in this place to-day."

"This greatly disturbed the minds of many sisters, and some brethren. The brethren stared and turned pale, and the sisters cried, Sister Howe, in particular, was very much terrified; "Oh, dear me!" said she, "what shall we do? what shall we do? The keys of the kingdom are taken from us, and what shall we do? .... I tell you again," said Sidney, with much feeling, "the keys of the kingdom are taken from you, and you never will have them again until you build me a new house.""

"We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things the general public does not need to know, and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows."

"Bromidic though it may sound, some questions don't have answers, which is a terribly difficult lesson to learn."

"“,” is a true story about . Reading her life and dramatizing it, I could find all these things . . . some have changed, and some haven’t that much. Oh, I love that story – I love her. I love her femininity, her weaknesses as well as her strengths. The way she falls desperately in love with and she just can’t give him up. But what does he hold against her? Her achievements"

"'The thing is to be happy,' he said. 'No matter what. Just try that. You can. It gets to be easier and easier. It's nothing to do with circumstances. You wouldn't believe how good it is. Accept everything and then tragedy disappears. Or tragedy lightens, anyway, and you're just there, going along easy in the world.'"

"Because if she let go of her grief even for a minute it would only hit her harder when she bumped into it again."

"I want my stories to move people, I don’t care if they are men or women or children. I want my stories to be something about life that causes people to say, not, oh, isn’t that the truth, but to feel some kind of reward from the writing, and that doesn’t mean that it has to be a happy ending or anything, but just that everything the story tells moves the reader in such a way that you feel you are a different person when you finish."

"Alice Munro's Open Secrets is so liberating and exciting for any new story writer to feel her open textures, her bold reach, her plainness, with no showing off, no special effects. She reminds us that there's no formula for a story, it can be as loosely woven as you like, as long as the inner logic works organically. Easier said of course, much easier said, than done."

"Always remember that when a man goes out of the room, he leaves everything in it behind... When a woman goes out she carries everything that happened in the room along with her."

"In your life there are a few places, or maybe only the one place, where something happened, and then there are all the other places."

"This is what happens. You put it away for a little while, and now and again you look in the closet for something else and you remember, and you think, soon. Then it becomes something that is just there, in the closet, and other things get crowded in front of it and on top of it and finally you don't think about it at all. The thing that was your bright treasure. You don't think about it. A loss you could not contemplate at one time, and now it becomes something you can barely remember. This is what happens. Few people, very few, have a treasure, and if you do you must hang onto it. You must not let yourself be waylaid, and have it taken from you."

"She was learning, quite late, what many people around her appeared to have known since childhood: that life can be perfectly satisfying without major achievements."

"People are curious. A few people are. They will be driven to find things out, even trivial things. They will put things together, knowing all along that they may be mistaken. You see them going around with notebooks, scraping the dirt off gravestones, reading microfilm, just in the hope of seeing this trickle in time, making a connection, rescuing one thing from the rubbish. And they may get it wrong, after all. I may have got it wrong."

"You cannot let your parents anywhere near your real humiliations."

"In 1976, I went to visit my mother, Alice Munro, for the summer at her home in Clinton, Ont. One night, while she was away, her husband, my stepfather, Gerald Fremlin, climbed into the bed where I was sleeping and sexually assaulted me. I was nine years old."

"A story is not like a road to follow … it's more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like and discovering how the room and corridors relate to each other, how the world outside is altered by being viewed from these windows. And you, the visitor, the reader, are altered as well by being in this enclosed space, whether it is ample and easy or full of crooked turns, or sparsely or opulently furnished. You can go back again and again, and the house, the story, always contains more than you saw the last time. It also has a sturdy sense of itself of being built out of its own necessity, not just to shelter or beguile you."

"[Some time later, after his actions became known] Meanwhile, Fremlin acted quickly. He told my mother he would kill me if I ever went to the police, and wrote letters to my family, blaming me for the abuse."

"In spite of the letters and threats, my mother went back to Fremlin, and stayed with him until he died in 2013. She said that she had been "told too late," she loved him too much, and that our misogynistic culture was to blame if I expected her to deny her own needs, sacrifice for her children, and make up for the failings of men. She was adamant that whatever had happened was between me and my stepfather. It had nothing to do with her."