Pam Gems Quotes

I think we're socialized out of being women, and then we have to find our way back to it. That's hard to do.

I have been a woman for fifty years, and I've never yet been able to discover precisely what it is I am.

It is possible to say that all of my books concern themselves with the notion of what it means to be female - whether it is in New York City in 2000 or Calcutta in 1836. In that way, my books really are the same.

I identify with my womanhood before anything else because that's what I deal with when I am alone.

It took me ages to grow into being a woman, into being happy with it.

I was born a girl; it just took me a little while to become one fully.

I do think of 'The Idiot,' in a way, as a self-standing book about a certain struggle to make meaning, the struggle for a girl to find meaning outside of the romance plot.

Being a woman means everything to me.

When I went into the conservatory at 17, then I was able to open up and accept everything about myself and show my feminine side as well as my masculine.

Maybe a young woman will go see a show by a woman, or starring a woman about women's issues, and that will help her get to that quiet place inside of herself where she can then explore what it means to be a woman to her.

I think the biggest shift for me is - this is going to sound like a wanky actor, but - getting in touch with, and learning to not just appreciate, but actually really enjoy being a woman. Because for so long I was a jock, and I was an athlete, and I was a tomboy, and people would joke about like, fancy dress, you should go as a girl.

I was a weird tomboy most of my life. I didn't see the power in my own female form for quite a long time. Maybe that's a good thing.

Woman must come of age by herself... She must find her true center alone.

Becoming a woman is an act partly of nature and partly of self-invention.

As a kid, I wanted to be a boy because I equated that with strength. There's a problem with that. It's only growing into my own womanhood that I realize how warped that is that I was attributing strength to male qualities.

Once I know who I'm not, then I'll know who I am.

I needed to carve out my own place and find out what I was going to do.

People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.

What does it mean, being a woman?

No matter how you travel, it's still you going.

The intellectual who wants to do her work properly must today go back to the starting point: the woman whom she knows, and first of all to herself. It is at that level, and at no other, that she ought to begin to think about the world situation.

I've etched out who I am through myriad haircut attempts, outfit attempts, beauty attempts, diet attempts. It's been an evolution.

I want my readers to find their own way.

Little kids grow up discovering the world that's shown to them and then when you become a teenager, it kind of shrinks a little bit. I think when you get past that point, one of the important things is that you see there is more to the world than yourself.

Many women have told me they remember where they were when they read the book, and how they felt suddenly that what they really thought or felt about things made sense.