Gina Barreca Quotes

Words can be as irrevocable as an action. They can cut as deeply as a surgeon’s scalpel.

In short, immaturity is spoiled. And what is spoiled doesn’t ripen. It goes bad early, gets bitter and withers on the vine.

Ask a woman if she’s ambitious and she’ll look at you as if you just asked whether she sticks pins in puppies for fun. Ask a woman if she’s competitive and she’ll look at you as if you suggested that she’s a hooker.

Speaking up is important. Yet to speak up without listening is like banging pots and pans together: Even if it gets you attention, it’s not going to get you respect.

Patriotism is about a desire for progress, not a yearning for repetition.

...there is a celebrated aphorism insisting that the best way to live is to 'work like you don't need the money, dance like nobody is watching, and love like you've never been hurt.'...After years of hearing and reading these lines I have decided to tell the truth: the original version is wrong. There is a grave error in the wording of this adage. The correct version should go as follows:Love like you don't need the money,Work like nobody is watching,Dance like you've never been hurt.See? Doesn't that make more sense?

To slur “feminism” into “humanism” is to usurp women’s voices once again, to make the singular feminine into the so-called universal masculine.

How about "diamonds are a girl's best friends"? Nope. It should be switched around and pointed out, instead, that your best friends are diamonds.

We all enter this world crying. Laughter is something we have to learn

Maturity understands that there’s darkness in the world but that there’s no need to dwell in it: we can lighten up and offer illumination to others.

If anger were mileage, I'd be a very frequent flyer, right up there in First Class.

It’s only when you’re at the bottom of the ladder that you ascend.

Until we’re pushing up daisies, it might be good to remind ourselves daily that everything’s coming up roses — for me and for you.

Comics know that time plus pain equals humor and that we can redeem even awful moments from the past by translating them into a shared experience.

Boys are rewarded for playing games where they line up by height and then run into walls. Perhaps I'm making that up--or perhaps you should do a Google search for "Guy Runs into Wall for Fun."Not only do women hold up half the sky; we do it while carrying a 500-pound purse.From age sixteen to age twenty, a woman's body is a temple. From twenty-one to forty-five, it's an amusement park. From forty-five on, it's a terrarium.Bring your sense of humor with you at all times. Bring your friends with a sense of humor. If their friends have a sense of humor, invite them, too

Never use the passive voice. Do not say, 'It will get done.' Say, 'I'll do it,' and then stick to a solid, unwavering deadline