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.

Some people live life and others talk about it.

The owner of Mojo's was a suicide blonde, dyed by her own hand.

Happiness is pretty simple: someone to love, something to do, something to look forward to.

People are like tea bags; you never know how strong they'll be until they're in hot water. In times of trouble, you not only discover what you truly believe but whether or not you can act on your beliefs.

Class is much more than Marx's definition of relationship to the means of production. Class involved your behavior, your basic assumptions, how you are taught to behave, what you expect from yourself and from others, your concept of a future, how you understand problems and solve them, how you think, feel, act.

I still miss those I loved who are no longer with me but I find I am grateful for having loved them. The gratitude has finally conquered the loss.

The process of writing, any form of creativity, is a power intensifying life.

Language is the road map of a culture. It tells you where its people come from and where they are going.

Humor comes from self-confidence.

Sorrow is how we learn to love. Your heart isn't breaking. It hurts because it's getting larger. The larger it gets, the more love it holds.

People who care for you inevitably become beautiful.

When I got [my] library card, that was when my life began.

I have finally figured out that the purpose of life is to enjoy it.

If it weren't for the last minute, nothing would get done.

Life is unjust, people can be cruel, and yet if you harden your heart, you will lose what little love there is in this world.

I think gay people are like blondes: There're fewer of them but they have more fun.

What's the point of prolonging your life if you don't enjoy it? It's your body. Do whatever you want with it. Better to wear out than rust over.

Life is too short to be miserable.

One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.

Youth moves out, leaving no forwarding address. No matter how you try, you can't reach that person again or that place.

Every day you're alive and someone loves you is a miracle.

When Mother died I was both freed and abandoned, as are we all at this profound juncture in our lives.

About all you can do in life is be who you are.

So much of life is happenstance. It makes me laugh when I go to a bookstore and see all those titles about controlling your life. You're lucky if you can control your bladder.

Loving's pretty easy. It's letting someone love you that's hard.

He unzipped his pants and his brains fell out.

Oppression works in such a way that it holds every person responsible for the acts of any wrongdoer of the oppressed group.

I mean, what do people talk about when they're married?" "Their kids, I guess." "Maybe that's all they have in common.

Morals are private. Decency is public.

Creative people do not belong in the university because the process is antithetical to the analytical process so necessary for proper scholarship.

Anyone of my generation who trusts government probably has an I.Q. that would make a good golf score.

Nothing is unnatural - just untried.

If you can't raise consciousness, at least raise hell.

For you to be successful, sacrifices must be made. It's better that they are made by others but failing that, you'll have to make them yourself.

The writer's job is not to write a novel, hold it up and say, “Here I am,” but to write a novel, hold it up and say, “Here YOU are.

Women need to feel loved and men need to feel needed.

Whenever I doubt the existence of God or the Goddess, I look at horses. Only God could have made a horse.

People aren't grapes - you can't weigh them in a bunch, but I guess it's easier than dealing with people as individuals.

My lesbianism is an act of Christian charity. All those women out there praying for a man, and I'm giving them my share.

In America sex is an obsession. In Europe it's a fact of life.

Why can't peace be a single overriding common purpose: why do we wait for a crisis to pull us together? Let's pull together for peace.

I'm not a person who worries too much about what I've done.

Familiarity breeds consent.

Love is the wild card of existence.

Never, ever underestimate your readers. Everything you do registers.

I believe that we often disguise pain through ritual and it may be the only solace we have.

So often the truth is told with hate, and lies are told with love.

Whoever heard of a neurotic frog? Where do humans get off thinking they're the pinnacle of evolution?