Eleanor Quotes

• No one, Eleanor Roosevelt said, can make you feel inferior without your consent. Never give it.

  Marian Wright Edelman

  Positive, Respect, Giving

  Marian Wright Edelman (2013). “The Measure of our Success: A Letter to My Children and Yours”, p.29, Beacon Press

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• You always admire what you really don't understand. - Eleanor Roosevelt

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Admiration, Admire, Admiring

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• The Eleanor Roosevelt Award that I received for women's rights activities is one I treasure

  Patty Duke

  Awards, Rights, Treasure

  Patty Duke (2010). “Brilliant Madness: Living with Manic Depressive Illness”, p.295, Bantam

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• I learned the power of radio watching Eleanor Roosevelt do her show. I used to go up to Hyde Park and hold her papers. I was just a messenger, but it planted the bug of radio in me.

  Allen Funt

  Paper, Radio, Hyde

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• Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, Gandhi — all these peopled described themselves as quiet and soft-spoken and even shy. And they all took the spotlight, even though every bone in their bodies was telling them not to.

  Susan Cain

  Motivation, Inspiration, Spotlight

  "The Power of Introverts". Ted Talk, www.ted.com. February 2012.

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• Don't bite his face, Eleanor told herself. It's disturbing and needy and never happens in situation comedies or movies that end with big kisses.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Kissing, Faces, Comedy

  Rainbow Rowell (2016). “The Rainbow Rowell Collection: Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Landline, and Carry On”, p.144, St. Martin's Griffin

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• That girl--all of them--hated Eleanor before they'd even laid eyes on her. Like they'd been hired to kill her in a past life.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Girl, Eye, Past

  Rainbow Rowell (2016). “The Rainbow Rowell Collection: Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Landline, and Carry On”, p.12, St. Martin's Griffin

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• Holding Eleanor’s hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive. As soon as he touched her, he wondered how he’d gone this long without doing it. He rubbed his thumb through her palm and up her fingers, and was aware of her every breath.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Butterfly, Hands, Long

  Rainbow Rowell (2013). “Eleanor & Park”, p.71, Macmillan

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• Nothing was dirty. With Park. Nothing could be shameful. Because Park was the sun, and that was the only way Eleanor could think to explain it.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Dirty, Thinking, Way

  Rainbow Rowell (2016). “The Rainbow Rowell Collection: Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Landline, and Carry On”, p.227, St. Martin's Griffin

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• I miss you, Eleanor. I want to be with you all the time. You’re the smartest girl I’ve ever met, and the funniest, and everything you do surprises me. And I wish I could say that those are the reasons I like you, because that would make me sound like a really evolved human being …‘But I think it’s got as much to do with your hair being red and your hands being soft … and the fact that you smell like homemade birthday cake

  Rainbow Rowell

  Girl, I Like You, Thinking

  Rainbow Rowell (2016). “The Rainbow Rowell Collection: Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Landline, and Carry On”, p.101, St. Martin's Griffin

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• Or maybe, he thought now, he just didn't recognize all those other girls. The way a computer drive will spit out a disk if it doesn't recognize the formatting. When he touched Eleanor's hand, he recognized her. He knew.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Girl, Hands, Way

  Rainbow Rowell (2016). “The Rainbow Rowell Collection: Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Landline, and Carry On”, p.66, St. Martin's Griffin

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• There was something about the music on that tape. It felt different. Like, it set her lungs and her stomach on edge. There was something exciting about it, and something nervous. It made Eleanor feel like everything, like the world, wasn't what she'd thought it was. And that was a good thing. That was the greatest thing.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Different, Tape, World

  Rainbow Rowell (2016). “The Rainbow Rowell Collection: Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Landline, and Carry On”, p.53, St. Martin's Griffin

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• I look like a hobo?" "Worse," he said. "Like a sad hobo clown." "And you like it?" "I love it." As soon as he said it, she broke into a smile. And when Eleanor smiled, something broke inside of him. Something always did.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Looks, Hobos, You Like It

  Rainbow Rowell (2013). “Eleanor & Park”, p.163, Macmillan

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• Dumb. He should have gotten the pen. Jewelry was so public... and personal, which was why he'd bought it. He couldn't buy Eleanor a pen. Or a bookmark. He didn't have bookmarklike feelings for her.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Should Have, Dumb, Feelings

  Rainbow Rowell (2016). “The Rainbow Rowell Collection: Eleanor & Park, Fangirl, Landline, and Carry On”, p.182, St. Martin's Griffin

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• Eleanor Roosevelt was painfully shy, painfully shy. So she overcompensated. In the same way that Nancy Reagan felt unattractive and unlovable and so everything had to be - hair had to be perfect, and the makeup and the clothes. Because she thought, "They don't think I'm pretty."

  Cynthia Nixon

  Thinking, Makeup, Clothes

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• What was really great with Eleanor Roosevelt - I mean, of course, we all have this stereotypical, really satirical almost, version of how she speaks. What was really interesting to me was I found various radio and TV appearances of hers, but there was one talk show that I saw her on; she was the only woman, it was all men. They were talking about policy - I think it was after she was First Lady. I think it was more in the U.N. days.

  Cynthia Nixon

  Mean, Men, Thinking

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Gloria Steinem in the women's movement. Eleanor Smeal of the Feminist Majority. There are all of these great wonderful women I've met that are so inspirational.

  Dolores Huerta

  Feminist, Majority, Movement

  Source: www.sdfoundation.org

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• These people looked Japanese, were originally Japanese, were numerous. We had no way of knowing to what extent they had been infiltrated. To their great credit, it seems not to have been very much at all. But I can understand why. And I rather respect Eleanor for standing out against the tide at that point. But it certainly was a tide. And I'm not going to say it was unjustified.

  William A. Rusher

  Knowing, People, Credit

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• The campaign to put a woman on the $20 bill has narrowed the choices down to four finalists. The four finalists are Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Flo from the Progressive Insurance ads.

  Conan O'Brien

  Choices, Campaigns, Four

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• [On going into politics:] My husband went to bed with Debbie Reynolds and he woke up with Eleanor Roosevelt.

  Barbara Boxer

  Husband, Bed, Politician

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• Well, in Washington, this is a very hard time for Eleanor and Franklin. This is when Lucy Mercer first appears. And Lucy Mercer is Eleanor Roosevelt's own secretary. Very beautiful young woman, not unlike Eleanor Roosevelt: tall, blonde, thick haired. And FDR is having an affair with her, which Eleanor Roosevelt finds out when FDR returns from Europe in 1918 with the famous flu of 1918.

  Blanche Wiesen Cook

  Beautiful, Hard Times, Europe

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• He wound the scarf around his fingers until her hand was hanging in the space between them. Then he slid the silk and his fingers into her open palm. And Eleanor disintegrated.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Hands, Space, Scarves

  Rainbow Rowell (2013). “Eleanor & Park”, p.71, Macmillan

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• Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.

  Rainbow Rowell

  Love, Butterfly, Hands

  Rainbow Rowell (2013). “Eleanor & Park”, p.71, Macmillan

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• I think the most important thing I wanted to say at various times to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt was that it seemed so sad to me that - I really believe they loved each other and had a great deal of affection - but because of that early hurt in their marriage, there was a certain kind of distance from then on, until their deaths actually. So at times, I just wanted to push them together and say, "Come on, you guys! I know you love each other. This is crazy!"

  Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Hurt, Distance, Crazy

  "Lessons of Presidential Leadership". Academy of Achievemnt, www.achievement.org. June 28, 1996.

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• "Baby, you know?" my mother once said to me. "I think you're the greatest woman I've ever met - and I'm not including my mother or Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt in that." She said, "You are very intelligent and you're very kind, and those two qualities do not often go together." Then she went across the street and got in her car, and I went the other way down to the streetcar. I thought, "Suppose she's right. She's intelligent - and she's too mean to lie." You see, a parent has the chance - and maybe the responsibility - to liberate her child. And my mom had liberated me when I was 17.

  Maya Angelou

  Mom, Mother, Baby

  Interview with Oprah Winfrey, www.oprah.com. December 2000.

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