11 Quotes by Blanche Wiesen Cook

And even when success comes, as I am sure it will, bear in mind that there are more quiet and enviable joys than to be among the most sought after women at a ball...

I feel rather sad about politics,' she [Eleanor Roosevelt] wrote Isabella, 'there are so many who are out for themselves and not for the good of the country in both parties and conditions are so unsettled that we need a really fine leader.

Like traditional upper class families, there are nannies and servants, and the children, you know, come in to say good-night before they go to bed. There’s very little private time with the children in the early years. Actually, there’s much more private time with the children in the 20s.

Women who love women, who choose women to nurture and support and to create a living environment in which to work creatively and independently, are lesbians.

Eleanor Roosevelt started off almost every early article she wrote, starting with, “My mother was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.” And I think her life was a constant and continual and lifelong contrast with her mother.

I think Eleanor Roosevelt’s so popular at Allenswood because it’s the first time she is, number one, free. But it’s the first time somebody really recognizes her own leadership abilities and her own scholarly abilities.

Eleanor Roosevelt never thought that she was attractive. She never thought that she was really sufficiently appealing. And I think her whole life was a response to her effort to get her mother to pay attention to her, to love her, and to love her as much as she loved her brothers.

Politics is not an isolated, individualist adventure. Women really need to emerge as a power to be the countervailing power to the men. And Eleanor Roosevelt’s really the dynamo and the spearhead of that effort.

Eleanor Roosevelt doesn’t ever do anything that is going to hurt her husband. She tries things out on him. She gets permission to do things. The amazing thing, I think, historically, is that he says, “Go do it. If you can make this happen, I’ll follow you.”