Rita Mae Brown Quotes

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

The price of dishonesty is self-destruction.

To have meaningful work is a tremendous happiness.

friendship is love made bearable.

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.

Self-pity is the simplest luxury.

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.

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

I don't want to die. I think death is a greatly overrated experience.

You're nothing in America if you don't have debt.

I believe in art that conceals art.

Mother love is the most powerful, the most irrational force on earth, even more powerful than sexual love. However, one does lead to the other, so best not to spurn the former.

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.

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

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

You can love more than one person at a time, and I don't give a damn what the self-help books say.

Tennis, imprisoned within fixed boundaries, a patch of an acre, a green rectangle, tries the human soul. A tennis court is like a coffin, only larger.

When God made man she was practicing.

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.

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

I think of birth as the search for a larger apartment.

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.

Pain isn't always the enemy.

I believe our concept of romantic love is irrational, impossible to fulfill and the cause of many broken homes. No human being can maintain that rarefied atmosphere of 'true love'.

Life matters more than any painting, novel, film, or great big diamond.

whoever said progress was a positive thing has never been to Florida or California.

It's a big jump from smart to motherwit.

Dying's not so bad. At least I won't have to answer the telephone.

Do not judge. Never presume to judge another human being anyway. That's up to heaven.

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

I have changed my definition of tragedy. I now think tragedy is not foul deeds done to a person (usually noble in some manner) but rather that tragedy is irresolvable conflict.

compromise is the work of mature people.

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.

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

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

An army of lovers shall not fail.

Political elections are not life and death.

[A pariah is] something like a martyr with more suffering and less class.

Possession of a secret is no guarantee of its truth.

Language is decanted and shared. If only one person is left alive speaking a language - the case with some American Indian languages - the language is dead. Language takes two and their multiples.

piety is like garlic: a little goes a long way.

Tennis is physical chess.

In art as in politics we must deal with people as they are not as we wish them to be. Only by working with the real can you get closer to the ideal.

Adjectives are the curse of America.

It really doesn't take brains to be a politician as much as it takes stomach. Both would be nice, but in America we have accepted diminishing returns in this arena.

Novels, like human beings, usually have their beginnings in the dark.

Money and writing appear to be mutually exclusive.

Today we live in a society suffering from ethical rickets.

Where there is no faith, devils are a necessity.