Top 100 Quotes About Heroines
#1. There are others. There will be others. Other heroes, other heroines. Other prophecies to fulfill, other adversaries to despise. There will be stories told and forgotten, and reinvented anew until one day, perhaps, the oldest are remembered, and the beginning may end, and the ending begin.
Jacqueline Carey
#2. Jane Austen had created six heroines, each quite different, and that gave Charlotte courage. There wasn't just one kind of woman to be.
Shannon Hale
#3. I don't think you're happier if you're thin or beautiful or rich or married. You have to make your own happiness. My heroines do not become beautiful elegant swans, they become confident ducks and get on with life.
Maeve Binchy
#4. Iris Johansen's lovers weathered the sack of city states and the vagaries of the French Revolution; Judith McNaught's heroines endured amnesia, social ostracism and misunderstandings so big they deserved their own ZIP code.
Lauren Willig
#5. There is this idea that you have to play heroines or women who succeed.
Isabella Rossellini
#6. Male authors always take care to make their heroes at least one inch taller than they are, and considerably more muscular. Just as female authors give their heroines better hair and slimmer thighs.
Lee Child
#7. A writer must not take offence when inverts give his heroines masculine faces.
Marcel Proust
#8. There are very few heroines in literature who have defined their lives morally rather than romantically and likewise but a handful in film.
Molly Haskell
#9. Plot is a framework on which to drape other things. So once that's working, I can just let it go and do all the stuff that I love - 'Trojan horse' it. There are so many great YA heroines, and that's fantastic, but what about the emotionally complex boy out there? That's who I tend to write about.
Patrick Ness
#10. Women readers aren't turned on by nice heroes any more than male readers lust after heroines who are too virtuous.There should be at least a hint,maybe even a promise, of corruptibility.
Sandra Brown
#11. Regarding heroism, I grew up in a culture where you learn about heroes and heroines all the time. In a way, when you call someone a hero or heroine, it's the same as calling them a villain.
Yiyun Li
#12. I've no idea what I shall do when I am grown! I don't suppose there is much call for Knights or Bishops or Heroines in Omaha or even Chicago. And I'm sure other girls are much better at it than I.
Catherynne M Valente
#13. In books by women and for women, it should come as no surprise that heroines are the heroes of the action, finding themselves, their power and their future through love.
Sarah MacLean
#14. The heroines in 'That's What She Said' are flawed, messy, damaged, hilarious and culpable and not really concerned about being acceptable to the audience in any traditional sense, which for me is what makes them all the more gorgeous. And the fearless truth of that is what makes it funny.
Carrie Preston
#15. Despite all her efforts to not be one of those historical romance heroines, walking into the marble foyer and seeing the slick hardwood floors beyond, the glittering chandeliers and sconces, she felt like one.
She felt small and alone. And like maybe her dad lost her in a poker game.
Molly O'Keefe
#16. I've done nothing for the past five years but try to be the hero who protects her. The problem? Heroines don't need protecting.
Colleen Hoover
#17. Why aren't midwives the heroines of society that they should be? Why do they have such a low profile? They ought to be lauded to the skies, by everyone.
Jennifer Worth
#18. We all recall the cruel stepmother in fairy tales. That archetype is often a necessary element in a fairy tale so that the heroine/hero can become a person of character and power. Stories of heroes and heroines often begin with a wound or loss or injustice and end with heroic acts of restoration.
David Richo
#19. But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine; she read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives.
Jane Austen
#20. The one person whom I would like to be is Meryl Streep. Even at her age, she sits alongside the younger heroines at the Oscars with her name in the nominee list, and others around her wonder whether they still stand a chance.
Rani Mukerji
#21. Romance novels feature nuanced portrayals of female characters having adventures, making choices, and accepting themselves just as they are. When we say these stories are silly and unrealistic, we are telling young girls not to expect to be the heroines in their own real lives.
Maya Rodale
#22. YA heroines can choose to have sex & they can choose not to without either decision becoming the focus of their story.
Celine Kiernan
#23. Public opinion, though slow as lava, in the end forces governments towards more sanity, more justice. My heroes and heroines are all private citizens.
Martha Gellhorn
#24. There's no excuse for the young people not knowing who the heroes and heroines are or were
Nina Simone
#25. You care for empresses and queens?" I asked him.
"No. For tragic heroines."
"Why them?"
"Suffering and courageous women who deserve their own immortality.
Ronald Frame
#26. In fiction, as in real life, love might inspire acts that are at best foolish and at worst life-threatening, but in the best romances, love is the final, secret ingredient that turns mere mortals into heroes and heroines.
Sarah MacLean
#27. May We Love Ourselves.
May We Love Each Other.
May We Believe that Our Dreams Can Come True.
We Are Strong.
We Are Wise.
We Are the Heroines of our Own Lives
-The Heroine's Club benediction
Melia Keeton-Digby
#28. Yeah, I treat all my heroines like children now. I pick them up, I cuddle them, I call them baby ...
Shahrukh Khan
#29. Everyone loves a murder, eh? Villains in the night, tragic heroines splattered in gore. Better than an opera. Bloody vultures.
Viola Carr
#30. No doubt, much of the joy of a great romance is the moment when these stoic heroes crack open and reveal themselves to their heroines - the only women strong enough to match them.
Sarah MacLean
#31. I loved cinema from a very young age. I was also obsessed with Hitchcock and actresses like Kim Novak in Vertigo. They all played heroines and were strong, powerful women, yet they were very feminine.
Erdem Moralioglu
#32. As women, we are the protagonists of our own personal novels. We are called upon to be the heroines of our own lives, not supporting characters.
Erin Blakemore
#33. YA heroines can have romances that are subplots: can have goals other than getting/keeping a man: can put their lovers second. JUST LIKE YAheroes DO!
Celine Kiernan
#34. We are all the heroes and heroines of our own lives. Our love stories are amazingly romantic; our losses and betrayals and disappointments are gigantic in our own minds.
Maeve Binchy
#35. You know the fairy-tale drill, especially from the Disney versions: the heroines endure awful stuff in rites of passage that lead to a joyous resolution of, usually, marriage to a prince. 'Into the Woods' follows that template, then asks, 'What happens after Happy Ever After?'
Richard Corliss
#36. It's difficult for a young girl like me. Because there's a certain time for young actresses, which is like a really juicy period when all the parts are love interests and young heroines. Of course, there's always work for men whatever age they are.
Gemma Arterton
#37. Heroines in dramas, Bridget felt, really ought to have more sense.
Jim Butcher
#38. There is this giant void in the culture about women in that age group as heroines, as romantic beings, as sexual beings and as creative beings, and there's not that void for men. Women don't stop being all those things as their lives continue into those decades.
Naomi Wolf
#39. I think, with the gay liberation movement has had need for heroes and heroines, and it would be rather nice to have Abraham Lincoln as your poster boy, wouldn't it?
David Herbert Donald
#40. How ridiculous that water ran out of your eyes when your heart hurt. Tragic heroines in books tended to be amazingly beautiful. Not a word about swollen eyes or a red nose. "Crying always gives me a red nose," thought Elinor. "I expect that's why I'll never be in any book.
Cornelia Funke
#41. Boring heroines are, in my opinion, the most common romance mistake. We loathe hanging out with women who define themselves purely through their relationships ... why would we want to read about them?
Sarah MacLean
#42. Perfect heroines, like perfect heroes, aren't relatable, and if you can't put yourself in the protagonist's shoes, not only will they not inspire you, but the book will be pretty boring.
Cassandra Clare
#43. There must be hundreds of unsung heroes and heroines who first tasted strange things growing - and think of the man who first ate a lobster. This staggers the imagination. I salute him every time I take my nutcracker in hand and move the melted-butter pipkin closer.
Gladys Taber
#44. The history of struggle is rich with stories of heroes and heroines - some of them leaders, some of them followers, all of them deserve to be remembered.
Nelson Mandela
#46. You mustn't hit her over the head with it. Women like to be romanced like the heroines in the sensation novels." "What the devil do you know about sensation novels?" "A man can learn a great deal about women from novels," Matt said. "You should try it sometime.
Amanda Quick
#47. At least I could relate to Rose's sense of adventure and Harriet Jones' wacky determination and ingrained sense of responsibility. I can stomach the Tardis when my heroines are in place.
Chila Woychik
#48. I have often observed that the state of motherhood can turn quite ordinary females into heroines . . .
Kate Saunders
#49. You may debate whether the Disney heroines fit the feminist standard, but they don't live in a democracy. Remember, they're princesses.
Richard Corliss
#50. The statement I wanted to make was that it makes no sense to put these real-life women into one limited template, so why then are we doing it to our fictitious heroines?
David Trumble
#51. I think heroes and heroines are both vulgar and boring and usually lead that kind of lives. But when you tell people you were just doing your own thing in an admittedly escalated situation, they say, Ah, yes, etc.
Katharine Graham
#52. It is possible for YA heroines to go an entire book without discussing their love lives.
Celine Kiernan
#53. ...all readings are provisional, and that maybe we read heroines for what we need from them at the time.
Samantha Ellis
#54. Surely enough books have been written about heroines in similar circumstances. There is no need to go into the details of Alvina's six months in Islington.
D.H. Lawrence
#55. Honestly, I understand why ladies are never the heroines of anything, they simply cannot get away from their kitchens long enough to rescue anyone.
Barbara Hamilton
#56. The key element in tragedy is that heroes and heroines are destroyed by that which appears to be their greatest strength.
Robert Shea
#57. My heroines, more often than not, are the ones who are troubled and resistant.
Sylvia Day
#58. At its heart, Gothic Fiction is the introvert's "Hero's Journey" where heroes and heroines must navigate the uncharted territory of the mind in order to solve the mystery of their life's adventure.
Barrymore Tebbs
#59. Some of our national heroines were defined by the fact that they never nested - they were peripatetic crusaders like Susan B. Anthony, Clara Barton, Sojourner Truth, Dorothy Dix.
Gail Collins
#60. Fairy tales were not my escape from reality as a child; rather, they were my reality
for mine was a world in which good and evil were not abstract concepts, and like fairy-tale heroines, no magic would save me unless I had the wit and heart and courage to use it widely.
Terri Windling
#62. When the first-rate author wants an exquisite heroine or a lovely morning, he finds that all the superlatives have been worn shoddy by his inferiors. It should be a rule that bad writers must start with plain heroines and ordinary mornings, and, if they are able, work up to something better.
F Scott Fitzgerald
#63. Often the true hero and heroines of my books are the houses, the places, the communities where people find a home.
Jackie French
#64. so I drop the rock and cross my arms in front of me, suddenly self-conscious in the presence of two goddesses who look like comic book heroines.
Kevin Hearne
#65. Most mainstream male fiction is littered with heroines, and female characters are basically so great, you want to fall in love with them.
Iain Banks
#66. We older women who know we aren't heroines can offer our younger sisters, at the very least, an honest report of what we have learned and how we have grown.
Elizabeth Janeway
#67. The purpose of art is to reflect new emerging values and to define the new heroes and heroines so that people can absorb them into their perceptions.
Edward De Bono
#68. In you, I see the heroines of Shakespeare's tragedies.
You, unhappy lady, were
never saved by anybody.
Marina Tsvetaeva
#69. Because I never plan anything out ahead of time, I'm always in the process of learning about my characters. Without a biographical sketch to guide me, I discover things about my heroines as the stories unfold. Only in 'Body Double' did I discover that Maura's mother was a serial killer.
Tess Gerritsen
#70. I think we often hold heroines to an absurd standard. Be brave! Be wise! Always know what's in your heart and speak the truth of it! No and no and no. We fight to be brave. We learn to be wise. We struggle to know ourselves and voice what we want.
Leigh Bardugo
#71. My parents told me any and every fairy-tale from all around the world. I usually gravitated towards ones with interesting, strong heroines.
Sarah J. Maas
#72. She doesn't do the things heroines are supposed to. Which is rather Jane Austen's point - Fanny is her subversive heroine. She is gentle and self-doubting and utterly feminine; and given the right circumstances, she would defy an army.
Susanna Clarke
#73. I've always thought that, as a romance writer, I had the best job in the world. I sit around all day making up emotion-drenched, conflict-laden stories that push my heroes and heroines to the edge of sanity. Then I give them a happy ending.
Ruth Glick
#74. If you're a woman doing classic theater, the big roles are often destroyers. I've played Hedda Gabler, Lady Macbeth, some of the Chekhovian heroines, Electra, Phaedra - they're all powerful women, but they're forces of negativity.
Eve Best
#75. I really like writing heroes who aren't necessarily 'Hollywood handsome.' Personally, I think men who are self-confident, intelligent, and funny are outrageously attractive - and my heroines tend to think that, too!
Suzanne Brockmann
#76. I was fortunate to sell at a time of great sea change in the romance genre; suddenly heroines were allowed to be portrayed as having rich, fulfilling lives. They didn't need a man for security or self-esteem, but having that one very special man in their lives proved the icing on the cake.
JoAnn Ross
#77. There are so many unsung heroines and heroes at this broken moment in our collective story, so many courageous persons who, unbeknownst to themselves, are holding together the world by their resolute love or contagious joy. Although I do not know your names, I can feel you out there.
David Abram
#78. That was how the heroine of a book would play it and Diana was still writing her own story the best heroines she'd always believed took their fate into their own hands.
Anna Godbersen
#79. Unlike novels with a hero or two heroines, in 'One Amazing Thing,' all the characters tell stories they've never told anyone before, so all the voices become equally important.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
#80. At the heart of every successful romance novel lies the evolution of its characters. Through love, heroes and heroines grow not only into a perfect match, but into stronger, better, more admirable people.
Sarah MacLean
#81. Philosophy without action is the ruin of the soul. One brave deed is worth a hundred books, a thousand theories, a million words. Now as always we need heroes. And heroines! Down with the passive and the limp.
Edward Abbey
#82. I enjoy heroines who grow and come into their own during the course of a story.
Maggie Shayne
#83. Aren't most romance heros, or heros in fiction of any kind, generally superior to real men? Same goes for heroines and real women.
Nora Roberts
#84. I think as women we've always been very used to growing up reading and identifying with male protagonists, especially in fantasy. There's a saying in publishing that girls will read about boys, but boys will only read about boys, and it's important to give women strong heroines.
Cassandra Clare
#85. When you talk about heroines and heroes, at the top of the list has got to be the single moms of America.
Bernie Sanders
#87. My heroines are part of me and my heroes are part of what I'd like to know.
Agnes De Mille
#88. The world should not be organized to require heroines, and when one is required but fails to appear, we should not judge.
Ann-Marie MacDonald
#89. Novels do not force their fair readers to sin, they only instruct them how to sin; the consequences of which are fully detailed, and not in a way calculated to seduce any but weak but weak minds; few of their heroines are happily disposed of.
Johann Georg Ritter Von Zimmermann
#90. What had passed between Eleanor Harding and Mary Bold need not be told. It is indeed a matter of thankfulness that neither the historian nor the novelist hears all that is said by their heroes or heroines, or how would three volumes or twenty suffice!
Anthony Trollope
#91. You need not go back four thousand years for heroines. The world is filled with them today. They do not belong to any nation, nor to any religion, nor exclusively to any race. Wherever woman is found, they are found.
Robert Green Ingersoll
#92. were Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and most other fairy tale "heroines" beautiful but helpless? Why did they always have to be rescued by
Timothy Tocher
#93. There are always these moments in life when the limits of suffering are reached and we become heroes and heroines.
Katherine Mansfield
#94. It's not my business to remedy deaths! It's my business to tell stories. Lyra and the other heroines didn't come with placards saying, "Make this a feminist story!" I'm glad people enjoy seeing a female protagonist in a big adventure story, but I didn't do it for political reasons.
Philip Pullman
#95. I am always naturally drawn to heroines that have human flaws because I enjoy people that have lived their life with courage and make big successes and big failures.
Romola Garai
#96. As far as one knows of heroines from history. I'm capable of a great jerk, an effort, and then a relaxation - but steady every-day goodness is beyond me. I must be a moral kangaroo!
Elizabeth Gaskell
#97. She laughed at herself for this fancy at first; but not possessing the sweet unconsciousness of those heroines who can live through three volumes with a burning passion before their eyes, and never see it till the proper moment comes,
Louisa May Alcott
#98. Youth cannot imagine romance apart from youth. That is why the roles of the heroes and heroines of plays are given by the managers to the most youthful actors they can find among the competent.
Booth Tarkington
#99. I thought of all those heroines of fiction who looked pretty when they cried, and what a contrast I must make with a blotched and swollen face, and red rims to my eyes.
Daphne Du Maurier
#100. Aren't hidden doors the most alluring? The old stories point that out surely. Even the greatest heroes and heroines fall under the spell of a locked door.
Jane Yolen
