Quotes by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

They say women have no conscience about laws, dont they? Mrs MacAvelly suggested. Why should we? answered her friend. We dont make em– nor God– nor nature. Why on earth should we respect a set of silly rules made by some men one day and changed by some more the next?

You see, they were Mothers, not in our sense of helpless involuntary fecundity, forced to fill and overfill the land, every land, and then see their children suffer, sin, and die, fighting horribly with one another; but in the sense of Conscious Makers of People.

And woman should stand beside man as the comrade of his soul, not the servant of his body.

[The Yellow Wallpaper] was not intended to drive people crazy, but to save people from being driven crazy, and it worked.

I really have discovered something at last. Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out. The front pattern does move - and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it! Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over. Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard. And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern - it strangles so:...

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.

I am glad my case is not serious! But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing. John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.

Now why should that man have fainted? But he did,and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!

But I MUST say what I feel and think in some way — it is such a relief! But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief.

Through it [literature] we know the past, govern the present, and influence the future.

Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able, - to dress and entertain, and order things

John says I musnt lose my strength, and has me take cod liver oil and lots of tonics and things, to say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat.Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wish he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia.But he said I wasnt able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished.It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this nervous weakness I suppose.And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till it tired my head.He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had, and that I must take care of myself for his sake, and keep well.

John says if I dont pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall.But I dont want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so!Besides, it is such an undertaking to go so far.I dont feel as if it was worth while to turn my hand over for anything, and Im getting dreadfully fretful and querulous.I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.Of course I dont when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone.

It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight.

But reason has no power against feeling, and feeling older than history is no light matter.

He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more.

Its time we woke up, women are pretty much people, seems to me. I know they dress like fools- but who´s to blame for that? We invent all those idiotic hats of theirs, and design their crazy fashions, and, whats more, if a woman is courageous enough to wear common-sense clothes -and shoes- which of us wants to dance with her? Yes, we blame them for gratifying us, but are we willing to let our wives work? We are not. It hurts our pride, thats all. We are always criticizing them for doing mercenary marriages, but what do we call a girl who marries a chump with no money? Just a poor fool, thats all. And they know it. As for Mother Eve- I wasnt there and I cant deny the story, but I will say this. If she brought evil into the world, we men have had the loins share of keeping it going ever since- how about that?

It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so.

John dear! said I in the gentlest voice, the key is down by the front steps, under a plantain leaf!That silenced him for a few moments.Then he said—very quietly indeed, Open the door, my darling!I cant, said I. The key is down by the front door under a plantain leaf!And then I said it again, several times, very gently and slowly, and said it so often that he had to go and see, and he got it of course, and came in.

Only as we live, think, feel, and work outside the home, do we become humanly developed, civilized, socialized.