The woman artist as inner-critic

Why have we not had more female writers, painters, scientists, sculptors, or artists. One explanation offered is that many women do not perceive themselves as creators, follow their interests into career preparation, or place importance on the works they produce. Moreover, the problem may be further exacerbated even when a women produces an original, creative work of art, as some researchers have found that women are more conscious of criticism and find it more difficult to deal with negative perceptions of their work.

--Sally M. Reis, "Women and Creativity," in Encyclopedia of Creativity, edited by Mark A. Runco and Steven R. Pritzker, p. 701.

She's no lady, she's Madonna

I'm a perfectionist. and I'm under lots of pressure. Sometimes you have to be a bitch to get things done. I can be something of a tyrant. In a working situation. Well, in a living situation too.

Madonna, quoted in the chapter, "Fame and Power," in Madonna: The Style Book, by Debbi Voller, p. 82.

She's a lady...

And most male music — not all of it but the good stuff — really lays it on you. It really puts you against the wall and that's what I'd like to do. I'd like my music to intrude. Not many females succeed with that. I identify more with male musicians than female musicians because I tend to think of female musicians as ... ah ... females.

--Kate Bush, interviewed in the book, She's a Rebel By Gillian G. Gaar, p. 223.

The double life of the writer

I wrote out of desperation. In the great turmoil and gloom and euphoria of adolescence, I found there was nowhere to express the chaos of emotions I was feeling, nowhere but in words. I began to rely so much on writing that I was living a double life—one in the world and one on the page. The one on the page was more intense, more satisfying and for a long time much more real.

--Susan Minot, “A Real-Life Education,” in The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work, p. 50.

Language as a spiritual adventure

My love of writing grew out of my love of reading, with which my very life is identified. I can't imagine a mental life, a spiritual existence, not inextricably bound up with language of a formal, meditated nature. Telling stories, choosing an appropriate language with which to express each story: This seems to me quintessentially human, one of the great adventures of our species.

(Joyce Carol Oates, "The Importance of Childhood," in The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work, p. 12)

A billion reasons to be happy

I would like to be remembered for my books, especially for my novels, through which I have tried to give morality, beauty and love to the world. I have written at the moment 723 books all together and have sold approximately one billion....I am very thrilled by what I have achieved in my life, and I hope I have helped a great number of people to find love. What really matters, however, is that I do bring happiness to people...

--Dame Barbara Cartland, "How I Want to Be Remembered," in Chicken Soup for the Writer's Soul, p. 341, 344

Writing in the wilderness

What first stuns the young writer emerging from college is that there is no clear-cut road for him to travel on. He must chop a path in the wilderness of his own soul; a disheartening process, lifelong and lonesome.

--Flannery O'Connor, 1948 (quoted in "A Good Writer Is Hard to Find," by Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post, Feb. 22, 2009.)

The sudden inspiration to write

How is it that I became a writer?... It simply happened, suddenly, in 1956, while I was crossing the football field on the way home from school. I wrote a poem in my head and then I wrote it down, and after that, writing was the only thing I wanted to do....

My transition from not being a writer to being one was instantaneous, like the change from docile bank clerk to fanged monster in B movies. Anyone looking might have thought I'd been exposed to some chemical or cosmic ray of the kind that causes rats to become gigantic or men to become invisible.

--Margaret Atwood, "A Path Taken, with All the Certainty of Youth"  in Writers on Writing: More Collected Essays from the New York Times, edited by Jane Smiley, p. 9.

Writing to experience the world

Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.

--Joan Didion, "Why I Write," The New York Times Magazine, December 5, 1976.

The reader, by gender

I think it's far rarer for women to ask men to read their stuff than it is for men to ask women to read their stuff.  Poor Condi Rice couldn't even get George W. Bush to read her presentation of his foreign policy goals in Foreign Affairs magazine during his 2000 campaign.

(Maureen Dowd, Are Men Necessary?, p. 50.)