Rita Mae Brown Quotes

The dead are the only people to have permanent dwellings.

I always feel bad for those who, in a sense, cede their authority to others, let others make major decisions about their life and actually believe them. When you're tiny, you have no choice. But as soon as your mind starts working, you pretty well figure it out. And you realize you're a hostage until you're old enough to leave. But as long as you have that goal - I will get out of here - you'll be OK.

I love literature, the English language and storytelling. I also have thirty horses and seventy foxhounds to feed.

I finally figured out the only reason to be alive is to enjoy it.

Put your money in your head, that way no one can take it from you.

A deadline is negative inspiration. Still, it's better than no inspiration at all.

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

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

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.

friendship is love made bearable.

I believe the true function of age is memory. I'm recording as fast as I can.

English is weak in describing emotional states or intensities of interpersonal relationships.

There are more differences between poor people than between middle-class people.

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

It's an act of faith to be a writer in a postliterate world.

The last thing I have to say is that ice is the past tense of water. I've always wanted to write that sentence and now I have.

Show me a writer, any writer, who hasn't suffered and I'll show you someone who writes in pastels as opposed to primary colors.

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

A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.

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.

The only merciful thing about drug abuse is the speed with which it devastates you. Alcoholics can take decades to destroy themselves and everyone they touch. The drug addict can accomplish this in a year or two. Of course, suicide is even more efficient.

An army of lovers shall not fail.

As for loving woman, I have never understood why some people had a fit. I still don't. It seems fine to me. If an individual is productive responsible, and energetic, why should her choice in a partner make such a fuss? The government is only too happy to take my tax money and yet they uphold legislation that keeps me a second class citizen. Surely, there should be a tax break for those of us who are robbed of full and equal participation and protection in the life of our nation.

I believe in a lively disrespect for most forms of authority.

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

Monogamy is contrary to nature but necessary for the greater social good.

Tragedy massages the human ego even as comedy deflates it. ... Tragedy pits us against large foes and the trip wire is our own character. ... In comedy we fall afoul of one another. Comedy depends on social life, on our behavior in groups. In tragedy you can observe one human against the gods. In comedy it's one human versus other humans and often one man (or woman if I'm writing it) against her own worst impulses.

A peacefulness follows any decision, even the wrong one.

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.

You sell a screenplay like you sell a car. If someone drives it off a cliff, that's it.

The reward for conformity is that everyone likes you but yourself.

The only people are those who don't love anybody.

I'm sorry that our country and the people do not consider the arts as vital to our well-being as, say, medicine. Suffering is unnecessary. It doesn't make you a better artist; it only makes you a hungry one. However, to me the acquisition of the craft of writing was worth any amount of suffering.

I believe all literature started as gossip.

Normal is the average of deviance.

all outcast peoples struggle to be recognized as individuals. The damage of oppression is that it robs you of your individuality. You're just a faggot. Or whatever - fill in the blank. Everything you do is seen through the prism of your gayness or your womanness or your blackness by some people.

...funny how people want a return to the good ole days. Of coarse the good ole days of being a rich white plantation owner. Everyone seems to forget the poor white farmer.

Trouble is said to be good for an artist's soul but almost never is.

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.

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.

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.

Some people live life and others talk about it.

The price of dishonesty is self-destruction.

Hollywood called just as I crested thirty. My novels did not and still do not interest them, but my writing ability did.

Would it upset men if they found out we weren't different? Are we? Aren't we? Damned if I know.

Don't hope more than you're willing to work.

Political elections are not life and death.

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.