"I, too, want to return the punch": 10 Inspiring Quotes by International Women Writers

Posted on March 01, 2023

Looking for inspiration? These quotes from international women writers prove that while Women’s History Month may be over, the work is far from done. Read how these women writers got started, learn about their creative process, and explore what they hope to achieve through writing with the quotes below.

Getting Started

• Carmen Boullosa, author of "Sleepless Homeland"

  I was a girl that grew up late. So it was my body that changed, my city that changed, and my immediate environment that had been totally broken. And I had no sense of myself or what was around me. And I invented that I was a writer, and that gave me my original bone. I thought I was a writer, and with that fantasy, I built a person around it. (Words Without Borders Campus)

• Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, author of "Grass"

  Since I was a child, I liked to draw pictures. By the time I was 13 years old, I began dreaming about becoming an artist. I was little, but I had already begun wondering what is left behind after one passes away. I thought nothing lasts forever, not even love. Yet somehow art seems to last. And that’s why I wanted to become an artist. (The Korea Society)

• Gisèle Pineau, author of "Carnival Life"

  At the age of 10, I began to write because I was a lonely, little girl. I was a little girl who lived in a big family, in a city in the suburbs of Paris, where there was a lot of racism. And I was isolated. I didn’t have any friends. So, literature consoled me, comforted me, permitted me to invent the world, to laugh with my character, to write their destinies. (Radio France International)

The Writing Process

• Can Xue, author of "The Old Cicada"

  I've already been writing for over thirty years, and the writing method I use is precisely the creative method of modern art: Reason monitors from afar. Emotions are completely unleashed. I turn towards the dark abyss of consciousness and plunge in, and in the tension between those two forces, I build the fantastic, idealist plots of my stories. (Asymptote)

• Yolanda Arroyo Pizarro, author of "Bruises"

  I discovered I was a lion. My ancestras were all lions. Toni Morrison remarked on one occasion, ‘I get angry about things. Then, go on and work,’ and I identify myself completely with those words. Anger jumpstarts my work as well as indignation. I, too, want to return the punch. (United Nations program: Women, memory, creativity)

Why They Write

• Iman Mersal, author of "Amina" (pictured above)
• Mieko Kawakami, author of "Where Have All the Sundays Gone?"
• Évelyne Trouillot, author of "Detour"
• Habibe Jafarian, author of "How to be a Woman in Tehran "

Being a Woman

• Suzanne Dracius, author of "Women's Fantasies"

“I’m not ashamed of being a woman. On the contrary, I’m proud to be a woman and to own all of these desires that are within me and to be able to express them.” (Words Without Borders Campus: interview and blog post)

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Updated from a post originally published on March 30, 2022, and written by Education Fellow Allison Tim.