(March 6, 2021) A vast majority of the wealth of literature produced by women throughout the dawn of time has likely faded from view or never came into public view. The journals, jottings and stories written by women have been heralded in the quiet whispers of their own homes, communities and maybe their own imagination. Nevertheless–and despite a world agnostic to their existence–we have a bounty of great women authors to salute today–in honour of International Women’s Day, and well … just because we can. Here are 10 great women authors we here at The Charity Report find noteworthy.
Ursula K. LeGuin 1929–2018
“People who deny the existence of dragons are often eaten by dragons. From within.”
Toni Morrison 1931 –2019
“Anger … it’s a paralyzing emotion … you can’t get anything done. People sort of think it’s an interesting, passionate, and igniting feeling — I don’t think it’s any of that — it’s helpless … it’s absence of control — and I need all of my skills, all of the control, all of my powers … and anger doesn’t provide any of that — I have no use for it whatsoever.”
Alice Walker 1944 –
“I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.”
Octavia Butler 1947 – 2006
“People have the right to call themselves whatever they like. That doesn’t bother me. It’s other people doing the calling that bothers me.”
Isabel Allende 1942 –
“I have not changed; I am still the same girl I was fifty years ago and the same young woman I was in the seventies. I still lust for life, I am still ferociously independent, I still crave justice, and I fall madly in love easily.”
Carol Shields 1935 –2003
“Open a book this minute and start reading. Don’t move until you’ve reached page fifty. Until you’ve buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve.”
Barbara Kingsolver 1955 –
“My morning begins with trying not to get up before the sun rises. But when I do, it’s because my head is too full of words, and I just need to get to my desk and start dumping them into a file. I always wake with sentences pouring into my head.”
Louise Erdich 1954 –
“My mother is Turtle Mountain Chippewa, and she lived on her home reservation. My father taught there. He had just been discharged from the Air Force. He went to school on the GI Bill and got his teaching credentials. He is adventurous – he worked his way through Alaska at age seventeen and paid for his living expenses by winning at the poker table.”
Jhumpa Lahiri 1967 –
“You can’t have a hit every time. The main thing is to keep on working and not be afraid to take risks. It’s better to do something that’s not perfect and successful every time. It’s important to be fearless and move forward, to learn from what went wrong.”
Nadine Gordimer 1923 –2014
“The primacy of the word, basis of the human psyche, that has in our age been used for mind-bending persuasion and brain-washing pulp, disgraced by Gobbles and debased by advertising copy, remains a force for freedom that flies out between all bars.”
Related to great women authors
The Charity Report’s 2020 List of Exceptional Women December 16, 2020