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Show Sunday, December Women's Words Worth ml w so bee? Remembering 11, 1983 By RUSTY BROWN NEA Writer THE HERALD, Provo, Utah, Page fSUm e Elaine Partnow was burned at 32. An actress playing dinner club theaters around the out country, she got fed up. "I was tired of not being able to make a living and tired of cotton-cand- y she comedies," said. Now, at 41, she has found center stage as a recognized authority on the words and wisdom of women. Nearly 80,000 copies of her book, "The Quotable Women," (Anchor Press) have been sold since its initial publication in 1977. It's an encyclopedia of quotations from 1,300 women who lived between 1800 and the a a aT naf and a a n Partnow is now going backward in time and working on a companion volume that aay JN recently at the National Women's Political Caucus, and she told me how the book came to be. She was living with her father in LA at the time, sad over her mother's recent death and depressed about her future. Her mother had been an avid reader. "Whenever I got up in the night, I would see her lying on the couch reading." Something drew her to her mother's library, and she decided to focus on the books by or about women. "I hoped to find a new direc- tj, Vine pana a a a a a a a a oJQ aJ a tk. n Ms. includes quotes from Eve ("The serpent beguiled me and I did eat") to women of the 18th century. The new book has recently been published. She and I met in San Antonio g& "3X:a Va V a i r A p o laf Partnow said. thoughts," "As it turned out, the reading was my mother's final gift to me." She became increasingly aware of the impact of women on society: their struggles for abolition, children's rights, unionism, suffrage and equal rights; their influence in arts, literature, politics and the family. She also realized she had never seen a volume entirely devoted to the thoughts and comments of these remarkable women. She was astonished to learn that only 7.5 percent of the references in the famous "Bart-lett'- s Familiar Quotations" were attributed to women. "At first, I was surprised, then dismayed, then angry," she said. Her anger inspired a turning point in her life.. She spent the next four years completing the first encyclopedia of women's words. Now compiling the second installment at her home in New Orleans, she says she has just come across a "gold mine of Japanese and Chinese women poets writing from 200 B.C. to the 11th century A.D." She also uncovered the words of a woman burned as a witch. "I learned about her. after I saw a lithograph depicting her jOo7 a 5 17th-centur- y J" o a a. Double Face Counted Cross Stitch QUILT AIDA PRINTS CLOTH - Full Bolt Value to $7.98 Value to $19.98 yd. suffragist. About divorce: "Well, being divorced is like being hit by a Mack truck. If you live through it, you start looking very carefully to the right and to the left." Jean Kerr, playwright (in "Mary, Mary). About equal rights: "But when at last woman stands on an even platform with man, his acknowledged equal everywhere, with the same freedom to express herself in the religion and the government of the country, then, and not until then... will he be able to legislate as wisely and himgenerously for her as for Elizabeth Cady Stanton self." suffragist. "No one can On make you feel inferior without Eleanor Roo- your consent." - (1815-1802- ), self-estee- "The best Some is in your man a hold to way Mae West arms." "The idea of strictly minding our own business is moldy rubbish. Who could be so selfish?" one-liner- - - Myrtie Barker, journalist "When I was six I made my out of her mother a little bat Lilly Dache, new blouse." designer. "Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our George Eliot, pseudeeds." ), Evans donym of Mary Ann ; English novslist. -- - (1819-1888- . Luckily for women, Elaine Partnow has given us a way to look up the words of women worth looking up to. 3 , I f-T?- -rf n ( I I ' r rwwia "" tc d Mvow-tHE 130113 I Kwwtnf : VV Qffl5v v -- FELT BAND SQUARES MASTER Full bolt New Shipment Red & yd. 16' white included $4JS each 45" wide 45" wide p I Burlington $7 yd. Xmas mm Candle Wicking MUSLIM PRINTS Full bolts Value to $3.98 yd. PINKING PRINTS SHEARS Full bolts bolts Value to $6.49 yd. 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LeGuin, science-fictio- n On women's pay: "The and the house-builde- r, on less no us the postman charge account of our sex; but when we endeavor to earn money to pay all these, then, indeed, we find Lucy Stone the difference" c v'c O B 1 L $IJ8 c n a a a Cjoaaa n ID 3 DaC tion from their lives and Ms. Ia a a a a Oj r J ao An cA Do present. 'A a a a Value to $4.98 mm ftX ea. ea. Candlewicking OUTING PILLOW FLANNEL SQUARES PRINTS 18" x $1J! Designer Lengths Value to $2.49 18' ei 45" wide 45" wide -- . " ' 0 " . i n T - nn i i 41 |