187 Quotes by Mary Beard

I'm an academic. I argue; I engage with people.

I have always thought the women's movement traded too much on outrage and not enough on ridicule.

The building blocks of discrimination tend to be similar wherever you find them.

Fate has it in for me to be an exhibit: that funny old lady from the telly.

A lot of sexism is just very silly... and the best response is laughter and ridicule.

It's a bit naff, but there is something exciting about pulling a bit of pottery out of the ground that's 2,000 years old.

If talking about arts means being pretentious, a bit like being a wine critic, then I don't feel comfy with that. You can get a lot from paintings without getting mystical about brush strokes.

I do not think that the lives of women of my generation, as a class, were blighted by the way the power differentials between men and women operated. We wanted to change those power differentials; we also had a good time.

English country towns are often seen as a cultural wasteland, but the more cut off you are, the more the need to create things, to make your own culture.