Marilyn French (née Edwards) (November 21, 1929 – May 2, 2009) was a radical feminist American author.
All men are rapists and that's all they are
She drowned in words that could not teach her how to swim.
In a great gasp, puts her head in her hands again and cries as if her throat were a cave, as if the howling winds came from her belly, she cries like a storm that will never end.
Anyone determined to find another person or group inferior can always find whole lists of grounds that demonstrate inferiority because we are all inferior to the ideals of humanness we have erected.
If you ask me what I believe in today, I believe in feminism. I believe that all human beings are equal. I believe that no one has the right to authority over anyone else. Feminism has to do with everything in the world, a vision of how the world can be. I have great doubts about Utopias, but I just keep on thinking there is a better way to live than the way we live now.
I have opened all the doors in my head. I have opened all the pores in my body. But only the tide rolls in.
Men seem unable to feel equal to women: they must be superior or they are inferior
I believe that all human beings are equal. I believe that no one has the right to authority over anyone else.
There's power to: and everyone should have that, but everyone doesn't. Power to play Bach, or tennis, or boccie if you like. And there's power over; and no one should have that, but people do.
Habit is a good thing for the human race. . . . You have to spend so much energy just getting through the day when you have no habits that you don't have any left for productive labor.
The same men who are blind and deaf to feminism are acutely sensitive to what threatens their dominance and privilege.
Even disasters -- there are always disasters when you travel -- can be turned into adventures.
in a way it doesn't matter whether you open doors or close them, you still end up in a box.
There was no justice, there was only life. And life she had.
Fear is a question. What are you afraid of and why? Our fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if we explore them.
It's strange how men feel they have the right to criticize a woman's appearance to her face.
Women are afraid in a world in which almost half the population bears the guise of the predator, in which no factor - age, dress, or color - distinguishes a man who will harm a woman from one who will not.
Nothing is ever simple. What do you do when you discover you like parts of the role you're trying to escape?
rain is one thing the British do better than anybody else.
Later, she would remember these years, and realize with astonishment that she had, by fifteen, decided on most of the assumptions she would carry for the rest of her life: that people were essentially not evil, that perfection was death, that life was better than order and a little chaos good for the soul. Most important, this life was all. Unfortunately, she forgot these things, and had to remember them the hard way.