Heroines Quotes

“Who are your favorite heroines in real life? The women of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran who risk their lives and their beauty to defy the foulness of theocracy. Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Azar Nafisi as their ideal feminine model.”
― Christopher Hitchens, Hitch 22: A Memoir

“The day came when she discovered sex, sensuality, and literature; she said, 'I submit! Let my life be henceforth ruled by poetry. Let me reign as the queen of my dreams until I become nothing less than the heroine of God.”
― Roman Payne

“We like the wrong sorts of girls, they wrote. They are usually the ones worth writing about.”
― Catherynne M. Valente, In the Cities of Coin and Spice

“To quote French author François Mauriac, ‘Tell me what you read and I'll tell you who your are' is true enough, but I'd know you better if you told me what you reread.”
― Sarah Wendell, Everything I Know About Love I Learned from Romance Novels

“If you read fairy tales carefully, you’ll notice they are mostly about people who aren’t heroes. They don’t have special powers, or gifts. Often they are despised as stupid, They are bullied, beaten up, robbed, starved. But they find they are stronger than their misfortunes.”
― Amanda Craig, In a Dark Wood

“Mirror Mirror on the Wall, Who Do I see Before Me? I see a Girl Who Is Fearless Because Her Reflection Reflects Her Faith. - Kailin Gow, Fearless Fairy Tales Series”
― Kailin Gow

“…I wanted to show that the mother was the heroine as soon as possible. I'm tired of love-sick girls and runaway wives. We'll prove that there's romance in old women also.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Jo's Boys

“A hero: a man or woman who is unsatisfied by his condition, and resolves to do something about it.”
― Bangambiki Habyarimana, Pearls Of Eternity

“Often we can get caught in our own struggles, our own small stories, that we forget our place in the larger story arc – the way that our actions, our choices, our achievements can and will blaze trails for that who come after us, so that they do not have to spend their time and energy re-fighting the same battles.

For sure we walk a spiral path, but for generations of women the spirals were so tightly packed that it seemed they were going round in circles – let us blaze trails so that the path we walk takes in wider and wider sweeps of human experience.

Trail blazing is what we do when we find ourselves in the wilderness, with no path to guide us but our own intuitive understanding of nature and our destination. At times we must walk through the night, guided only by the stars. We know when to sit and rest, to shelter from storms, when to gather water, and what on the trail will sustain us and what will do us harm. We are courageous and cautious in equal measure, but we are driven forward, not only by our own desire to reach our destination, but also by the desire to leave a viable way for others who follow.

Trail blazing is an art-form. It is how we find paths through what before was wilderness. We push aside braches, or cut them back, we tramp down nettles and long grasses, ford rivers and streams, through the inner and outer landscapes.”
― Lucy H. Pearce, Burning Woman

“In all the tales of adventure Clara had ever heard, it was never young girls, who were daring. It was always boys running off to rescue a friend or fetch much-needed medicine or stumble into good fortune. Clara knew girls would be daring if given half the chance. And she intended to take that chance, right from under the pale nose of Mr. Earwood.”
― Natalie C. Parker, All Out: The No-Longer-Secret Stories of Queer Teens throughout the Ages

“I have often observed that the state of motherhood can turn quite ordinary females into heroines . . .”
― Kate Saunders, The Secrets of Wishtide

“Romance novels feature nuanced portrayals of female characters having adventures, making choices, and accepting themselves just as they are. When we say these stories are silly and unrealistic, we are telling young girls not to expect to be the heroines in their own real lives.”
― Maya Rodale, Dangerous Books for Girls: The Bad Reputation of Romance Novels Explained

“The best heroines, she'd always believed, took their fate into their own hands.”
― Anna Godbersen, Envy

“I have a vision that the modern sense of being a hero is like shining a bright light on things that need to be seen.”
― Ali Smith, Summer

“I love the fact that Perrault's princess goes on living and struggling after she finds her prince, and that Perrault doesn't shrink from the weirdness of Sleeping Beauty being over a hundred years old but having the body of a lithe young thing. When the prince wakes her, he considers telling her she's wearing the kind of clothes his grandmother used to wear, but decides it's best not to mention it just yet.”
― Samantha Ellis, How to Be a Heroine

“May We Love Ourselves.
May We Love Each Other.
May We Believe that Our Dreams Can Come True.
We Are Strong.
We Are Wise.
We Are the Heroines of our Own Lives
-The Heroine’s Club benediction”
― Melia Keeton-Digby, The Heroines Club: A Mother-Daughter Empowerment Circle

“In the darkened trailer, Kelly was frightened, but she was reassured at the no-nonsense way Sarah talked about weapons. And Kelly was beginning to see that Sarah didn’t let anything stop her, she just went and did it. This whole attitude of not letting other people stop you, of believing that you could do what you wanted, was something she found herself imitating.”
― Michael Crichton, The Lost World

“If I cheated on my spouse or partner, and they made the choice to stay with me regardless, I would leave that person. I will never be perceived as someone who needs a nice warm bath to come home to after rolling around outside in the grass; a coddled person, an infantile person, a person who's choices are perceived as the mistakes of a toddler, only needing to be slapped on the hand and then coddled. That would kill the relationship for me, that would kill everything. I'm not an inconsequential flower, I'm not a purified version washed down to be palatable; I am an equal. My mistakes should be treated as mistakes. I don't need forgiveness for anything that I do.

I'm not an inconsequential flower, I'm not a purified version washed down to be palatable; I am an equal. My mistakes should be treated as mistakes. I don't need forgiveness for anything that I do.”
― C. JoyBell C.

“I've never been very good at giving people what they want.”
― Diana Rosengard, Spooked.

“Ligeia, Annabel Lee, and Berenice,
Supernal beauties, pleasing to the eye,
Were temporary mates and marble-cheeked
Like timeless funerary monuments.

Tremaine’s Rowena, Lady Madeline,
Insidiously felled and pushed offstage,
Had met goth’s Mister Goodbar on the page.

First, females got top billed — — then burying.
What makes an author kill his heroines?

[Source: "Poe and His Women" a poem by LindaAnn LoSchiavo; first published by Bewildering Stories Magazine, 2019]”
― LindaAnn LoSchiavo, A Route Obscure and Lonely

“At this point, harking back to the stuff about souls, Andersen bolts on a perplexing Christian salvation message about how the Little Mermaid can earn a soul if she is good for three hundred years, but every time she sees 'a rude, naughty child', she'll get more time in purgatory. Don't be rude or naughty or the mermaids will suffer? Please. Even as a child, I knew this was ridiculous.”
― Samantha Ellis, How to Be a Heroine

“That was six years ago. We can’t keep turning our backs on chances to live or...at least stop denying ourselves pleasure.”
― Ally Fleming, Conquered

“As with all fairy tales, a crime was committed. In "Snow White," there was a poisoning. A hostage situation was at the heart of "Beauty and the Beast." "Hansel and Gretel" featured attempted cannibalism. "Cinderella" involved the lesser offense of party crashing. North Carolina began with a trespassing. Not a "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" domestic breaking and entering but an act of large-scale land grabbing.”
― Monique Truong, Bitter in the Mouth

“And then, usually, if one is not a girl one is a heroine - of the kind you read about. But I am not a heroine, either. A heroine is beautiful - eyes like the sea, shoots opaque glances from under drooping lids, walks with undulating movements, her bright smile haunts one still, falls methodically in love with a man - always with a man, - eats things (they are always called “viands”) with a delicate appetite, and on special occasions her voice is full of tears. I do none of these things. I am not beautiful. I do not walk with
undulating movements - indeed, I have never seen any one walk so, except, perhaps, a cow that has been overfed. My bright smile haunts no one. I shoot no opaque glances from my eyes, which are not like the sea by any means. I have never eaten any viands, and my appetite for what I do eat is most excellent. And my voice has never yet, to my knowledge, been full of tears.
No. I am not a heroine.”
― Mary MacLane, I Await the Devil's Coming

“Her hands were no longer smooth, instead they were now calloused from hard work. Days ago, Brynn had helped her cut her waist-length hair to just below her shoulders, making it easier to braid and keep out of her way when she ventured into the mountains. Even her speech was beginning to change as she slowly adopted the names and pronunciations of the islanders she now lived with. She was a Duchess of Kelnore no longer.”
― Hannah E. Carey, The Huntress: Tales of Pern Coen

“Acacia Vitak. Your time has come. It is time to remember who and what you are.”
― Jennifer West

“Suddenly the realisation dawned on me; this was my own doing, I'd been forever bored of my little life; I was no idol, no heroine, nobody.”
― Jennifer West, The Legend of Acacia Vitak

“They called her the iron lady
She walked with dignity and pride
They called her the iron lady
Because glory was on her side”
― Aida Mandic, On The Edge of Town

“The iron lady took you on a wild ride
Filled with courage, ambition, and passion
Her inner compass served as her guide
So being classy became a timeless fashion”
― Aida Mandic, On The Edge of Town

“But when a young lady is to be a heroine, the perverseness of forty surrounding families cannot prevent her.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey