Create Yours

Top 30 Laurie Penny Quotes (2025 Update)

Laurie Penny Quote: “Men grow up expecting to be the hero of their own story. Women grow up expecting to be the supporting actress in somebody else’s I refuse to burn my energy adding extra magic and sparkle to other people’s lives to get them to love me. I’m busy casting spells for myself.”

1. “Men grow up expecting to be the hero of their own story. Women grow up expecting to be the supporting actress in somebody else’s I refuse to burn my energy adding extra magic and sparkle to other people’s lives to get them to love me. I’m busy casting spells for myself.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “Stories matter. Stories are how we make sense of the world, which doesn’t mean that those stories can’t be stupid and simplistic and full of lies. Stories can exaggerate and offend and they always, always matter.”

2. “Stories matter. Stories are how we make sense of the world, which doesn’t mean that those stories can’t be stupid and simplistic and full of lies. Stories can exaggerate and offend and they always, always matter.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “If all women on earth woke up tomorrow feeling truly positive and powerful in their own bodies, the economies of the globe would collapse overnight.”

3. “If all women on earth woke up tomorrow feeling truly positive and powerful in their own bodies, the economies of the globe would collapse overnight.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “There comes a time when you have to decide whether to change yourself to fit the story, or change the story itself. The decision gets a little easier if you understand that refusing to shape your life and personality to the contours of an unjust world is the best way to start creating a new one. There.”

4. “There comes a time when you have to decide whether to change yourself to fit the story, or change the story itself. The decision gets a little easier if you understand that refusing to shape your life and personality to the contours of an unjust world is the best way to start creating a new one. There.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “The feminism that has mattered to the media and made magazine headlines in recent years has been the feminism most useful to heterosexual, high-earning middle- and upper-middle-class white women. Public ‘career feminists’ have been more concerned with getting more women into ‘boardrooms’, when the problem is that there are altogether too many boardrooms, and none of them are on fire.”

5. “The feminism that has mattered to the media and made magazine headlines in recent years has been the feminism most useful to heterosexual, high-earning middle- and upper-middle-class white women. Public ‘career feminists’ have been more concerned with getting more women into ‘boardrooms’, when the problem is that there are altogether too many boardrooms, and none of them are on fire.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “Everyone who was ever told a fairytale knows what happens to women who do their own magic.”

6. “Everyone who was ever told a fairytale knows what happens to women who do their own magic.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “There is a princess in all our heads: she must be destroyed.”

7. “There is a princess in all our heads: she must be destroyed.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “The reason the word Feminism has power is because the concept has power and the reason it has power is because people are still afraid of it.”

8. “The reason the word Feminism has power is because the concept has power and the reason it has power is because people are still afraid of it.”

— Laurie Penny

9. “Femininity itself has become a brand, a narrow and shrinking formula of commoditised identity which can be sold back to women who have become alienated from their own power as living, loving, labouring beings.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “The fact that ‘attention seeking’ is still considered a slur says much about the role of women in public life, on every scale.”

10. “The fact that ‘attention seeking’ is still considered a slur says much about the role of women in public life, on every scale.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “We can have everything we want as long as what we want is a life spent searching for exhausting work that doesn’t pay enough, shopping for things we don’t need and sticking to a set of social and sexual rules that turn out, once you plough through the layers of trash and adverts, to be as rigid as ever.”

11. “We can have everything we want as long as what we want is a life spent searching for exhausting work that doesn’t pay enough, shopping for things we don’t need and sticking to a set of social and sexual rules that turn out, once you plough through the layers of trash and adverts, to be as rigid as ever.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “The best way to stop girls achieving anything is to force them to achieve everything.”

12. “The best way to stop girls achieving anything is to force them to achieve everything.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “It was always somebody else’s apocalypse. Until it wasn’t.”

13. “It was always somebody else’s apocalypse. Until it wasn’t.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “Feminism has never just been about liberating women from men, but about freeing every human being from the straitjacket of gender oppression.”

14. “Feminism has never just been about liberating women from men, but about freeing every human being from the straitjacket of gender oppression.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “Those who are so eager for women and girls to go back to the kitchen might think again about just what it is we might be up to in there. You can plan a lot of damage from a kitchen. It’s also where the knives are kept.”

15. “Those who are so eager for women and girls to go back to the kitchen might think again about just what it is we might be up to in there. You can plan a lot of damage from a kitchen. It’s also where the knives are kept.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “That’s how oppression works. Thousands of otherwise decent people are persuaded to go along with an unfair system because changing it seems like too much bother. The appropriate response when somebody demands a change in that unfair system is to listen, rather than turn away or yell, as a child might, that it’s not your fault. Of course it isn’t your fault. I’m sure you’re lovely. That doesn’t mean you don’t have a responsibility to do something about it.”

16. “That’s how oppression works. Thousands of otherwise decent people are persuaded to go along with an unfair system because changing it seems like too much bother. The appropriate response when somebody demands a change in that unfair system is to listen, rather than turn away or yell, as a child might, that it’s not your fault. Of course it isn’t your fault. I’m sure you’re lovely. That doesn’t mean you don’t have a responsibility to do something about it.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “The problem is capitalism. The problem is that in order to sell seven billion people on the necessity of globalisation, we’ve created a moral universe where people who do not work to create profit are considered less than human, and used as surplus labour to drive down the cost of wages.”

17. “The problem is capitalism. The problem is that in order to sell seven billion people on the necessity of globalisation, we’ve created a moral universe where people who do not work to create profit are considered less than human, and used as surplus labour to drive down the cost of wages.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “According to the current logic of online misogyny a woman’s right to self-expression is less important by far than a man’s right to punish her for that self-expression.”

18. “According to the current logic of online misogyny a woman’s right to self-expression is less important by far than a man’s right to punish her for that self-expression.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “This is one of the reasons why women, and particularly young women, have adapted particularly well to the way in which social media and the capitalisation of the social realm requires everyone to apply the logic of branding to our own lives in order to gain followers. We have always been encouraged to understand femininity as a form of branding, albeit one burnt into our flesh at birth.”

19. “This is one of the reasons why women, and particularly young women, have adapted particularly well to the way in which social media and the capitalisation of the social realm requires everyone to apply the logic of branding to our own lives in order to gain followers. We have always been encouraged to understand femininity as a form of branding, albeit one burnt into our flesh at birth.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “Me, I believe in monogamy in much the same way as I believe in, say, cheese on toast. I’ll eat it, but only for very special people, and not for every meal. There are other interesting and delicious toast options out there, and I support people’s right to investigate those options without being punished.”

20. “Me, I believe in monogamy in much the same way as I believe in, say, cheese on toast. I’ll eat it, but only for very special people, and not for every meal. There are other interesting and delicious toast options out there, and I support people’s right to investigate those options without being punished.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “If you’re a woman and somebody calls you ‘attention seeking’, that’s a sure way to tell you’ve made an impact.”

21. “If you’re a woman and somebody calls you ‘attention seeking’, that’s a sure way to tell you’ve made an impact.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “Feminism, like wealth, does not trickle down, and while a small number of extremely privileged women worry about the glass ceiling, the cellar is filling up with water, and millions of women and girls and their children are crammed in there, looking up as the flood creeps around their ankles, closes around their knees, inches up to their necks.”

22. “Feminism, like wealth, does not trickle down, and while a small number of extremely privileged women worry about the glass ceiling, the cellar is filling up with water, and millions of women and girls and their children are crammed in there, looking up as the flood creeps around their ankles, closes around their knees, inches up to their necks.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “Every so often I wonder why I didn’t become a restaurant critic. They get free dinners. Being a feminist journalist, I get free death threats.”

23. “Every so often I wonder why I didn’t become a restaurant critic. They get free dinners. Being a feminist journalist, I get free death threats.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “Fake tiaras and fashion handbooks play into the collective fantasy that one day, if you are beautiful and good enough, you too can marry the inbred great-great-grandchild of some bloodless aristocrat whose distant relations were better at murdering huge numbers of peasants than some other bloodless aristocrat.”

24. “Fake tiaras and fashion handbooks play into the collective fantasy that one day, if you are beautiful and good enough, you too can marry the inbred great-great-grandchild of some bloodless aristocrat whose distant relations were better at murdering huge numbers of peasants than some other bloodless aristocrat.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “Sometimes you have to decide between doing what you love and being loveable, and the decision is always painful.”

25. “Sometimes you have to decide between doing what you love and being loveable, and the decision is always painful.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “I’m sure that Trump wants to sit in a shiny chair in the Oval Office and have people tell him all day that he’s the most powerful and impressive man in the world, and I’m just as sure that he doesn’t want to be bothered with the actual business of government.”

26. “I’m sure that Trump wants to sit in a shiny chair in the Oval Office and have people tell him all day that he’s the most powerful and impressive man in the world, and I’m just as sure that he doesn’t want to be bothered with the actual business of government.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “The engine of capitalist patriarchy runs on the dirty fuel of women’s shame.”

27. “The engine of capitalist patriarchy runs on the dirty fuel of women’s shame.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “Feminism is active. It’s not something you are; it’s something you do. It’s what you fight for that matters. Feminism is not an identity but a movement, a way of living. And feminism isn’t just about women – it’s about liberating everyone from gender oppression, but since women are most oppressed by modern gender norms and laws, and since the movement has always been driven by women’s politics, ‘feminism’ is an appropriate name.”

28. “Feminism is active. It’s not something you are; it’s something you do. It’s what you fight for that matters. Feminism is not an identity but a movement, a way of living. And feminism isn’t just about women – it’s about liberating everyone from gender oppression, but since women are most oppressed by modern gender norms and laws, and since the movement has always been driven by women’s politics, ‘feminism’ is an appropriate name.”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “Work, beauty and romance, then marriage, mortgage and kids: that definition of total freedom has been allowed to conquer our imaginations, leaving no space for any other lives. But what if you want something else? Is that still allowed?”

29. “Work, beauty and romance, then marriage, mortgage and kids: that definition of total freedom has been allowed to conquer our imaginations, leaving no space for any other lives. But what if you want something else? Is that still allowed?”

— Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny Quote: “Without the work that women do for free, every western economy would collapse within days.”

30. “Without the work that women do for free, every western economy would collapse within days.”

— Laurie Penny

Motivational Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Positive Quotes

Positive Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Motivational Quotes

Motivational Quotes

INSPIRATIONAL SUCCESS MOTIVATIONAL

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

Inspirational Entrepreneurship Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS INSPIRATIONAL

Positive Quotes

Positive Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

Albert Einstein Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS INSPIRATIONAL

Steve Jobs Quotes

Steve Jobs Quotes

ENTREPRENEURSHIP BUSINESS APPLE

Inspirational Quotes

Inspirational Quotes

COURAGE MOTIVATIONAL STRENGTH

INSPIRATIONAL SUCCESS MOTIVATIONAL

Swami Vivekananda Quotes

Swami Vivekananda Quotes

LIFE SPIRITUALITY

Save image...
Permalink
Open in new tab
Copy quote text

Beautiful Wallpapers and Images

We hope you enjoyed our collection of 30 Laurie Penny Quotes.

All the images on this page were created with QuoteFancy Studio.

Use QuoteFancy Studio to create high-quality images for your desktop backgrounds, blog posts, presentations, social media, videos, posters, and more.

Thank you!

Please check your email.