Rita Mae Brown Quotations

The only queer people are those who don't love anybody.

Women who love women are Lesbians. Men, because they can only think of women in sexual terms, define Lesbian as sex between women.

About all you can do in life is be who you are. Some people will love you for you. Most will love you for what you can do for them, and some won't like you at all.

Intuition is a suspension of logic due to impatience.

I became a lesbian because of women, because women are beautiful, strong, and compassionate.

You can't be truly rude until you understand good manners.

All creatures tread across the rubble of ruined civilizations. The trick is to keep moving. No animal ever goes about dispensing shallow compassion.

One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.

Virginia Woolf said that writers must be androgynous. I'll go a step further. You must be bisexual.

I've met many irresponsible people in my life but never an irresponsible cat.

We animals live life in all its glorious uncertainty. Why do politicians think they can control events?

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.

A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it's better than no inspiration at all.

Language exerts hidden power, like the moon on the tides.

As a woman, I find it very embarrassing to be in a meeting and realize I'm the only one in the room with balls.

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts. And never hope more than you work.

If the world were a logical place, men would ride side saddle.

Not until my middle thirties did I consider myself a novelist.

Cats and dogs believe politicians are like cemetery caregivers; they are on top of everyone, but nobody listens.

No animal on the face of the earth could conceive of taxation. You and I work roughly six months a year to pay our local, state and federal taxes. If nothing else, this should convince you that animals are smarter than people.

If you don't like my book, write your own. If you don't think you can write a novel, that ought to tell you something. If you think you can, do. No excuses. If you still don't like my novel, find a book you do like. Life is too short to be miserable. If you do like my novels, I commend your good taste.

Divorce is the one human tragedy that reduces everything to cash.

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.

The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself.

Education is a wonderful thing. If you couldn't sign your name you'd have to pay cash.

I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.

I believe in a lively disrespect for most forms of authority.

A peacefulness follows any decision, even the wrong one.

Leroy bet me I couldn't find a pot of gold at the end, and I told him that was a stupid bet because the rainbow was enough.

I believe you are your work. Don't trade the stuff of your life, time, for nothing more than dollars. That's a rotten bargain.

There are very few people who are creative and imaginative. Therefore, fiction is difficult for people to embrace.

Hollywood called just as I crested thirty. My novels did not and still do not interest them, but my writing ability did.

While cats can be infuriating, little old women in fur coats, they make me laugh. Of course, dogs, horses and my highly social chickens are dear to me, too.

I don't think you can ever assess your work. I don't think Turgenev could assess his any more than I can assess mine, and his didn't have a social impact as much as great literary impact.

There hasn't been a day in my life since I started Latin in ninth grade that I haven't benefited by the lives of the ancients.

Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself.

A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.

Art is moral passion married to entertainment. Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television.

Don't ask to live in tranquil times. Literature doesn't grow there.

You sell a screenplay like you sell a car. If someone drives it off a cliff, that's it.

Every action is either strong or weak, and when every action is strong we are successful.

I believe the true function of age is memory. I'm recording as fast as I can.

I think the reason I choose the comic approach so often is because it's harder, therefore affording me the opportunity to show off.

If you like my novels, I commend your good taste.

Recognition of function always precedes recognition of being.

To love without role, without power plays, is revolution.

I have no idea what will come next in my writing life or life in general. I like not knowing, but I know what I want. That doesn't mean it will happen, but I'll give it my best try.

I am a comic writer, which means I get to slay the dragons, and shoot the bull.

I earned two Emmy nominations for writing, and two of the shows I had written were nominated for best in their category.

Moral passion without entertainment is propaganda, and entertainment without moral passion is television.

Writers will happen in the best of families.

Good judgment comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgment.

I write poetry. It comes naturally to me, but from a technical point of view it forces me to pay close attention to language and to scan.

I always feel bad for those who, in a sense, cede their authority to others, let others make major decisions about their life and actually believe them. When you're tiny, you have no choice. But as soon as your mind starts working, you pretty well figure it out. And you realize you're a hostage until you're old enough to leave. But as long as you have that goal - I will get out of here - you'll be OK.

One thing Mom taught me, "You're going to be dead a long time, so do it now!"

American hunting is quite different from English hunting because we don't hunt to kill. Even if I wanted to kill a fox, I couldn't. They're too smart and they have too many ways to escape me, whereas they don't in England.

I had to learn the image is not the word, which is a jolt for a literary soul. But it has served me well in terms of understanding plot, in terms of watching actors develop characters.

I love literature, the English language and storytelling. I also have thirty horses and seventy foxhounds to feed.

Knowing Latin and having two years of Attic Greek gave me the strong foundation upon which I've built a career. I think the classical training, more than anything, has provided me with longevity.

I do think women avoid power. Power assumes responsibility and accountability, and I think many, many women want to have it both ways.

Dean: Don't you find that somewhat of an aberration? Doesn't this disturb you my dear? After all, it's not normal. Molly: I know it's not normal for people in this world to be happy, and I'm happy.

If you're afraid to die, you're afraid to live. You can't have one without the other.

Two wrongs don't make a right. No, but three will get you back on the freeway!

He tried to drown his troubles but they knew how to swim.

I no longer idolize reason. I have come to accept that ninety percent of what we do is irrational and that we spend what little rational thought we have in justifying our irrationality.

Never measure literature by accounting statistics. A quarter of working authors earn less than $1,000.

I think you can judge the level of success for any group of people by the reaction against it.

Never let money control you. I'd rather see someone spend every red cent and relish his/her life than scrimp, obsess, and pinch the pennies. There's something repugnant about a person who centers his life around money.

Never let anyone or any social attitude stand in the way of your productivity.

It's still easier to take a blow from outside than it is to be disgusted with myself for not taking a stand. I don't know how people can live and not fight back but apparently millions do. They must hate themselves.

Mothers have a habit of proving right except you don't find that out until you're the age your mother was when she gave you the advice.

I've got splinters in my nose from the best publishing doors in town.

I think in the years to come what Reagan will be remembered for is that he had the chance to stop the plague and he chose not to because the 'right people' were dying.

Consider the "new" woman. She's trying to be Pollyanna Borgia, clearly a conflict of interest. She's supposed to be a ruthless winner at work and a bundle of nurturing sweetness at home.

The price of dishonesty is self-destruction.

I believe in art that conceals art.

Any woman whose I.Q. hovers above her body temperature must be a feminist.

To have meaningful work is a tremendous happiness.

I used to think romantic love was a neurosis shared by two, a supreme foolishness. I no longer think that. There's nothing foolish in loving anyone. Thinking you'll be loved in return is what's foolish.

The real reason Milton went blind was to avoid reading unsolicited manuscripts.

Writers are the moral purifiers of the culture. We may not be pure ourselves but we must tell the truth, which is a purifying act.

I believe every change any word has undergone probably originated in ignorance.

Tennis is physical chess.

Aunt Mimi possessed a horror of silence, which she battled with endless chat. The Typhoid Mary of the Telephone started her calls at 6:30 each morning.

All decisions are made on insufficient evidence.

One survey found that ten percent of Americans thought Joan of Arc was Noah's wife.

When God made man she was practicing.

Don't hope more than you're willing to work.

Oh well, maybe the only beauty left in cities is in the oil slicks on the road and maybe there isn't any beauty left in the people who live in these places.

I can only say I wish I had slept with everyone I am accused of.

Unfortunately, Susan didn't remember what Jane Fulton once said, 'Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.

It doesn't matter to me. We're still cousins in our own way. Blood's just something old people talk about to make you feel bad.

Odd thing about death ... it reaffirms life.

Put your money in your head, that way no one can take it from you.

What happens to children and families today who sit around the television? They're watching made-up stories. It's not their experience and it's not truly shared. A human being must learn at a very young age how to connect to other human beings. Our technologies are driving us apart, only connecting us in terms of information, not in terms of emotions.

Adjectives are the curse of America.

Show me a writer, any writer, who hasn't suffered and I'll show you someone who writes in pastels as opposed to primary colors.

Money and writing appear to be mutually exclusive.

Gambling operates under the premise that greed can be satisfied by luck.

Gossip is irresponsible communication. Irresponsible because it is at the expense of another person who is not there to defend herself. Irresponsible because it is not constructive: it helps no one, least of all the person being gossiped about.