Any wild woman knows that her lovers aren’t the only people in her life who deserve love and devotion. Here’s to the women who stand by us when we really need it—our friends.
We move forward when we realize how resilient and striking the women around us are.
—Rupi Kaur, Canadian poet, writer, illustrator, and performer
One friend with whom you have a lot in common is better than three with whom you struggle to find things to talk about. We never needed best friend gear, because I guess with real friends you don’t have to make it official. It just is.
—Mindy Kaling, actress, comedian, and writer
The most beautiful discovery that true friends can make is that you can grow separately without growing apart.
—Elizabeth Foley, angel healer and psychic development teacher
We’re connected, as women. It’s like a spiderweb. If one part of that web vibrates, if there’s trouble, we all know it, but most of the time we’re just too scared, or selfish, or insecure to help. But if we don’t help each other, who will?
—Sarah Addison Allen, bestselling author of The Peach Keeper
A friend is someone who knows all about you and loves you anyway!
—Leslie Rossman, wise woman and power publicist
You don’t make friends, you earn them!
—Deena Patel Wine, justice-minded legal lady
I can trust my friends. These people force me to examine and encourage me to grow.
—Cher, iconic pop singer and actress
A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.
—Shania Twain, bestselling female country singer/ songwriter
If you judge people, you have no time to love them.
—Mother Teresa, philanthropic missionary nun
A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.
—Beth Bachtold, insightful writer
The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference.
—Audre Lorde, award-winning writer, poet, and civil rights activist
I always felt that the great high privilege, relief, and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing.
—Katherine Mansfield, prominent short fiction author
We all need friends with whom we speak of our deepest concerns and who do not fear to speak the truth in love to us.
—Margaret Guenther, author, Episcopal priest, and seminary professor
Though friendship is not quick to burn, it is explosive stuff.
—May Sarton, poet, novelist, and memoirist
When one is out of touch with oneself, one cannot touch others.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh, author, journalist, and aviator
It seems to me that trying to live without friends is like milking a bear to get cream for your morning coffee. It is a whole lot of trouble, and then not worth much after you get it.
—Zora Neale Hurston, novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist
Friendship is the finest balm for the pangs of despised love.
—Jane Austen, classic novelist known for social commentary
Women of my generation, unlike generations before us, we have been with several men—or in some cases, many men. I raise the question, why?
—Joni Mitchell, generation-defining singer-songwriter
Self-help books are making life downright unsafe. Women desperate to catch a man practice all the ploys recommended by these authors. Bump into him, trip over him, knock him down, spill something on him, scald him, but meet him.
—Florence King, acerbically witty and misanthropic writer and columnist
Nothing melts a woman’s heart like gold.
—Susannah Centlivre, poet, actress, and the most successful playwright of the eighteenth century
I wanted to make it really special on Valentine’s Day, so I tied my boyfriend up. And for three solid hours I watched whatever I wanted to on TV.
—Tracy Smith, comedienne and writer
The most important thing in a relationship between a man and a woman is that one of them must be good at taking orders.
—Linda Festa, witty epigrammist
Women have one great advantage over men. It is commonly thought that if they marry, they have done enough and need career no further. If a man marries, on the other hand, public opinion is all against him if he takes this view.
—Dame Rose Macaulay, award-winning novelist
These are very confusing times. For the first time in history a woman is expected to combine intelligence with a sharp hairdo, a raised consciousness with high heels, and an open, nonsexist relationship with a tan guy who has a great bod.
—Lynda Barry, feminist cartoonist, author, and teacher
The ultimate test of a relationship is to disagree but to hold hands.
—Alexandra Penney, women’s author, editor, artist, and journalist
Men who consistently leave the toilet seat up secretly want women to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and fall in.
—Rita Rudner, famed stand-up comedienne
Maybe I’ve been married a few too many times. I love a good party, but I have recently realized that I can actually just throw a party and not get married.
—Whoopi Goldberg, comedian, actress, and talk show host
Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.
—Maryon Pearson, Canadian known as a wellspring of wit
If you want to say it with flowers, a single rose says: “I’m cheap!”
—Delta Burke, actress and producer
In real love, you want the other person’s good. In romantic love, you want the other person.
—Margaret C. Anderson, literary magazine founder, editor, and publisher
I love humanity, but I hate people.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay, renowned poet and playwright
No one can understand love who has not
experienced infatuation. And no one can understand infatuation, no matter how many times [s]he has experienced it.
—Mignon McLaughlin, journalist and author of The Neurotic’s Notebook and sequels
Every one of us needs to show how much we care for each other, and in the process, care for ourselves.
—Diana, Princess of Wales
Everyone admits that love is wonderful and necessary, yet no one agrees on just what it is.
—Diane Ackerman, poet, essayist, and naturalist
You can’t put a price tag on love, but you can on all its accessories.
—Melanie Clark Pullen, Irish actress, producer, and writer
Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell.
—Joan Crawford, classic grande dame actress of film and television
IF one doesn’t respect oneself, one can have neither love nor respect for others.
—Ayn Rand, writer and Objectivist philosopher
The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others but ourselves as well.
—Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, pioneering Swiss-American psychiatrist and writer
A woman’s love is a man’s privilege, not his right.
—Unknown wild woman
Laugh, and the world laughs with you. Cry, and you cry with your girlfriends.
—Laurie Kuslansky, insightful writer
Start living now. Stop saving the good china for the special occasion. Stop withholding your love until that special person materializes. Every day you’re alive is a special occasion. Every minute, every breath, is a gift from God.
—Mary Manin Morrissey, motivational speaker.
Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.
—Ella Fitzgerald, legendary singer known as the “Queen of Jazz”
I don’t know about you, but I am glad my sweetheart is not a mind reader.
—Mary Jane Ryan, bestselling author and executive coach
Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.
—Marianne Williamson, spiritual teacher and author
Women measure their achievements not in the wealth they have gathered, but in the love they have gathered around them.
—Linda MacFarlane, reflective author
Not in strength are we inferior to men; the same our eyes, our limbs the same; one common light we see, one air we breathe; no different is the food we eat. What then denied to us hath heaven on man bestowed?
—Penthesilea, Amazon warrior queen
This excerpt is from Badass Women Give the Best Advice by Becca Anderson, which is available now through Amazon and Mango Media.
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