Out of the Mouths of Babes: Quips and Quotes from Wildly Witty Women

By Autumn Stephens

Humorous, startling, and shocking quotations from fierce and fiery women fill the pages of this sassy little book. Out of the Mouths of Babes continues the tradition started by author Autumn Stephens in her books Wild Women and Wild Words from Wild Women. There is no lack of confidence and sense of self in these women's sayings. More than 150 outrageously entertaining quotes present mostly well-known women in their outspoken glory. Organized into sections with titles like Gifted Gabbers, Liberated Lovers, and Brazen Biddies, Out of the Mouths of Babes is a perfect reminder to all women that the feminine spirit is alive and well!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 1, 2001
• ISBN: 9781609251321

Autumn Stephens

Autumn Stephens is the editor of Roar Softly and Carry a Great Lipstick and the Wild Women series of biography and humor. Her work has appeared in the New York Times and various newspapers and magazines. A former book reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle, Autumn leads book group discussions and conducts writing workshops for women with cancer. She lives in Berkeley with her husband and two children.

Book preview

Copyright © 2000 Autumn Stephens

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. For information, contact: Conari Press, 2550 Ninth Street, Suite 101, Berkeley, California 94710-2551.

Conari Press books are distributed by Publishers Group West.

Cover Illustration: Martha Newton Furman

Cover Design: Ame Beanland

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Out of the mouths of babes: quips and quotes from wildly witty women / Compiled by Autumn Stephens.

p. cm.

Includes index.

ISBN 1-57324-558-5 (pb)

ISBN 1-57324-562-3 (hc)

1. Women—Quotations. I. Stephens, Autumn, 1956- II. Title.

PN6081.5.097 2000

808.88'2'082—dc21

00–0095281

Printed in the United States of America on recycled paper.

00 01 02 TC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

www.redwheelweiser.com

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Contents

A Habit of Speech

one The Self-Esteem Scene

two Ravishing Raconteurs

three Gifted Gabbers

four Ambitious Wenches & Driven Dames

five Hot (and Bothered) Tamales

six Power Players and State Smashers

seven Liberated Lovers

eight Loquacious Laborers

nine On the Tail of the Frail Male

ten The Anti-Prejudice Posse

eleven The Bold and the Badly-Behaved

twelve Women’s Rights—and Wrongs

thirteen Wary Wives & Blissful Bachelorettes

fourteen Brazen Biddies

fifteen Notes of a Female Nature

sixteen Cheap Talk and Pricey Advice

seventeen Horrible Housekeepers & Minimalist Moms

eighteen The Bravado Brigade

nineteen Grating Thoughts & Parting Shots

Index

Here’s to those who wish us well and those who don’t can go to hell!

—PATSY CLINE,

deceased country and western singer

A Habit of Speech

The sole female in a household teeming, like the rest of the world, with testosterone and bathroom humor, I sometimes crave the kind of peace and quiet that I imagine a convent offers. Admittedly, it might be a bit of a bummer for the spouse and kids if Mommy Dearest suddenly decided to take the veil. Besides, I'm pretty much a congenital agnostic. To this feminist and former hippie, however, there's still something soothing in the fantasy of an all-female community, humming with harmonious common purpose and synchronized menstrual cycles. An added attraction: nuns almost never need to worry about sucking in their tummies, or whether they'd look better with a little botox in their brows.

Fortunately for the family unit, however, I suspect that convent life demands a lot more tongue-holding and self-shushing than a seasoned old lady like me (or most of the two-and-a-half billion other women on this planet, for that matter) could truly tolerate.

As the Indian poet Anasuya Sengupta writes, Too many women in too many countries speak the same language—silence. Been there, done that; got the tee-shirt (or the wimple), in other words.

Attempting to suppress the verbal virtuosity of women is not a very original sin, but it certainly is a tenacious one across time and culture. Even today, word wizardry, like cooking, remains one of those quotidian feats that attract fanfare only when performed by a man. Crack the cover of the typical anthology of wit and wisdom, or peer under the toque (or whatever!) of that trendy celebrity chef: the motif is overwhelmingly male. Yet it's the female sex which, barred from all tangible venues of power, has actually spent centuries learning to hone words into sophisticated psychic weapons. The wicked quip, the stinging barb, the disarming declaration—whether muttered beneath the breath, or shouted from the battlements—these are a woman's survival skills; these are a woman's art.

A dangerous daydream, then, venturing into Vow of Silence territory. And since the function of fantasy is to offer a retreat from the world, not a replica of it, I'm just about ready to exchange my convent conceit for something a little, well, noisier. Peace, at least the inner kind, is not necessarily synonymous with quiet. Maybe, in fact, the two aren't even compatible.

one

The Self-Esteem Scene

When I look at myself, I am so beautiful, I scream with joy.

—MARIA MONTEZ, aka the Queen of Technicolor in her Hollywood heyday

People say that I am arrogant. I am No. 1 in the world, so I have a right to be arrogant.

—MARTINA HINGIS, teen tennis champ

I knew right away that Rock Hudson was