Female Writers Quotes

I think a lot of studios today are run by women, and we are entering a time when a lot of women have evolved in Second City and Upright Citizens Brigade and wanted to become writers and comedians.

I just think of myself as a writer. Yes, I'm a woman. And I'm a writer. The main challenge is that I like to write stories about young women, and society doesn't place much of a premium on young women's stories. And I think that's why I gravitate towards it. I really honor that, and I treasure that time, and they should be given that respect.

I was really influenced by Joan Didion and Pauline Kael; they were both at the height of their influence when I was coming into my own as a reader.

I think a lot of people compare female writers or female comedians to each other in a way that men are not. Male comedy writers are not scrutinized.

I'm perfectly happy when I look out at an audience and it's all women. I always think it's kind of odd, but then, more women than men, I think, read and write poetry.

Pulp paperbacks have always provided a training ground for men, Some of them went on to become respected authors - Dean Koontz, Nelson DeMille and Martin Cruz Smith, for example. Why couldn't a woman?

Harcourt sent my book to Evelyn Waugh and his comment was: “If this is really the unaided work of a young lady, it is a remarkable product.” My mother was vastly insulted. She put the emphasis on if and lady. Does he suppose you’re not a lady? she says.

Nobody ever has a problem if a man writes a woman. I wanted to be able to say, 'Well, I can write your men and your action, too. You don't just have to give me the love scenes, which I don't even think are my strong suit.'

When I go to a web video meeting and look around, at least half the show runners are women. And a lot are actors-cum-writers who are frustrated with the situation of being a woman actor in Hollywood and have decided to create their own show.

Throughout much of history, women writers have capitulated to male standards, and have paid too much heed to what Virginia Woolf calls "the angel in the house." She is that little ghost who sits on one's shoulder while one writes and whispers, "Be nice, don't say anything that will embarrass the family, don't say anything your man will disapprove of ..." [ellipsis in original] The "angel in the house" castrates one's creativity because it deprives one of essential honesty, and many women writers have yet to win the freedom to be honest with themselves.

No matter how successful, beloved, influential her work was, when a woman author dies, nine times out of ten, she gets dropped from the lists, the courses, the anthologies, while the men get kept. ... If she had the nerve to have children, her chances of getting dropped are higher still. ... So if you want your writing to be taken seriously, don't marry and have kids, and above all, don't die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that.

I love Joy Williams, Lorrie Moore: such great short-story writers.

My world did not shrink because I was a black female writer. It just got bigger.

Of the female black authors, I really like Morrison's early books a lot. But she's really become so much a clone of Faulkner. He did it better.

It's not hard to be a woman in comedy as long as you're also a writer. You have to create your opportunity.

Shirley Jackson enjoyed notoriety and commercial success within her lifetime, and yet it still hardly seems like enough for a writer so singular. When I meet readers and other writers of my generation, I find that mentioning her is like uttering a holy name.

I'd studied English literature at university, but I was also far more enamored with Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, and James Joyce. That was my passion.

I'm a woman, and I'm interested in writing stories from a female perspective.

I love a good Dorothy L. Sayers.

There's still only maybe three female writers or two female writers to 10 guys in any kind of writer's room.

Woman novelists seem to have a reputation for being dowdy.

Young women should be telling stories of other young women. And if the superstar who is an amazing storyteller isn't a writer, that's totally fine, but we should get a young female writer in the room to work on that song with us.

I had a girls' writing retreat at my condo and a bunch of other female writers came down. Me and two other writers got there before everyone and they pitched this idea to me. At first I wasn't sure what direction it was going in, but then once they kind of explained to me what they were thinking, we wrote it.

I definitely look up to Veronica Roth, Suzanne Collins, and J.K. Rowling.

Margaret Atwood and Ursula K. Le Guin were the biggest inspirations for my work because they trod into areas considered to be owned by male writers and created these worlds that are infused with an understanding of so much more than just technology.