"(Sometimes that's all you need, my love - another woman's faith in you.)" 

-Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough 

"(Why, though, does it take
a mother, daughter, sister
for men to take
a woman at her word?)"
-Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough

"I will show you what a woman can do."
-Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough

"I make another vow.  One day I will be loved for my music and my mind by someone who puts me above everything else.  Maybe someone who is discovering love for the first time too.  I will not be a secret.  I will be a declaration."
-You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone by Rachel Lynn Solomon

"I could say 'I love my body' so that I appear to be a good feminist.  But that only means pretending to love something I hate."
-So Sad Today: Personal Essays by Melissa Broder

"Far from being intimidated by her accomplished male companions, she took heart from the idea that in becoming an author she was living up to her literary heritage."
-Romantic Outlaws by Charlotte Gordon

"These people who had lived in the same place all of their days did not know how strange and curious the world could be.  She saw how suspicious they were of outsiders and how fearful of change.  How limited their lives seemed!" 
-Romantic Outlaws by Charlotte Gordon

"On the way down into the uncanny valley, we've decided that images of women in power, in the abstract, are as important as people of any gender who are actually working to make equality a reality for everyone." 
- We Were Feminists Once by Andi Zeisler

"It seemed they viewed her differently now.  She had status.  She mattered.  All at once they were interested in what she had to say. 

She hadn't fully understand that before this, she hadn't mattered, and she felt indignant but also, against all logic, gratified.  And also fraudulent.  It was confusing."
- Vinegar Girl by Anne Tyler

"Women of my generation were given the lavish gift of our own agency by feminism - a belief that we could decide for ourselves how we wold live, what would become of us.  Writers may be particularly susceptible to this outlook, because we are accustomed to the power of authorship.  (Even if you write nonfiction, you still control how the story unfolds.)  Life was complying with my story.

There were shadows I saw out of the corner of my eye that looked like problems waiting to become real, but you never know with shadows."
- The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy