Quotessence
Home / Topics / Menstruation Quotes

Menstruation Quotes

Browse 57 quotes about Menstruation.

Menstruation Quotes

“It was 1976. It was one of the darkest days of my life when that nurse, Mrs. Shimmer, pulled out a maxi pad that measured the width and depth of a mattress and showed us how to use it. It had a belt with it that looked like a slingshot that possessed the jaw-dropping potential to pop a man's head like a gourd. As she stretched the belt between the fingers of her two hands, Mrs. Shimmer told us becoming a woman was a magical and beautiful experience. I remember thinking to myself, You're damn right it had better be magic, because that's what it's going to take to get me to wear something like that, Tinkerbell! It looked like a saddle. Weighed as much as one, too. Some girls even cried. I didn't. I raised my hand. "Mrs. Shimmer," I asked the cautiously, "so what kind of security napkins do boys wear when their flower pollinates? Does it have a belt, too?" The room got quiet except for a bubbling round of giggles. "You haven't been paying attention, have you?" Mrs. Shimmer accused sharply. "Boys have stamens, and stamens do not require sanitary napkins. They require self control, but you'll learn that soon enough." I was certainly hoping my naughty bits (what Mrs. Shimmer explained to us was like the pistil of a flower) didn't get out of control, because I had no idea what to do if they did.”

HumorSchoolHealthNurseJunior HighMenstruationEmbarassment
Book:The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club: True Tales from a Magnificent and Clumsy Life
Create image

“Women are females and men are males. According to gynaecologists, women menstruate every month or so, while men, being male, do not menstruate or suffer during the monthly period. A women, being female, is naturally subject to monthly bleeding. When a women does not menstruate, she is pregnant. If she is pregnant, she becomes, due to pregnancy, less active for about a year.”

MenWomenFemalePregnancyPregnantMaleMenstruationMenstruate
Book:The Green Book
Create image

“Making a poltergeist can be a simple recipe: allow a girl to have her first menstrual period, tell her she is a naughty girl for thinking dirty thoughts, punish her, bore her, disenfranchise her from her life, and wait. It is not a universal outcome. More than likely, you will summon nothing more than a moody teenager who slams her bedroom door and wishes aloud she had never been born. In exceptional cases, the dishes will fly off the shelves.”

GirlGhostTeenagerHauntingHauntedMenstruationPunishPoltergeist
Book:The Curious Case of the Talking Mongoose
Create image

“I knew, for instance, that rooms where people slept exuded peculiarly human smells just as the goat pen smelt goaty and the cattle kraal bovine. It was common knowledge among the younger girls at school that the older girls menstruated into sundry old rags which they washed and reused and washed again. I knew, too, that the fact of menstruation was a shamefully unclean secret that should not be allowed to contaminate immaculate male ears by indiscreet reference to this type of first in their presence.”

FemmeMenstruation
Book:Nervous Conditions
Create image

“There is a bench in the back of my garden shaded by Virginia creeper, climbing roses, and a white pine where I sit early in the morning and watch the action. Light blue bells of a dwarf campanula drift over the rock garden just before my eyes. Behind it, a three-foot stand of aconite is flowering now, each dark blue cowl-like corolla bowed for worship or intrigue: thus its common name, monkshood. Next to the aconite, black madonna lilies with their seductive Easter scent are just coming into bloom. At the back of the garden, a hollow log, used in its glory days for a base to split kindling, now spills white cascade petunias and lobelia. I can't get enough of watching the bees and trying to imagine how they experience the abundance of, say, a blue campanula blosssom, the dizzy light pulsing, every fiber of being immersed in the flower. ... Last night, after a day in the garden, I asked Robin to explain (again) photosynthesis to me. I can't take in this business of _eating light_ and turning it into stem and thorn and flower... I would not call this meditation, sitting in the back garden. Maybe I would call it eating light. Mystical traditions recognize two kinds of practice: _apophatic mysticism_, which is the dark surrender of Zen, the Via Negativa of John of the Cross, and _kataphatic mysticism_, less well defined: an openhearted surrender to the beauty of creation. Maybe Francis of Assissi was, on the whole, a kataphatic mystic, as was Thérèse of Lisieux in her exuberant momemnts: but the fact is, kataphatic mysticism has low status in religious circles. Francis and Thérèse were made, really made, any mother superior will let you know, in the dark nights of their lives: no more of this throwing off your clothes and singing songs and babbling about the shelter of God's arms. When I was twelve and had my first menstrual period, my grandmother took me aside and said, 'Now your childhood is over. You will never really be happy again.' That is pretty much how some spiritual directors treat the transition from kataphatic to apophatic mysticism. But, I'm sorry, I'm going to sit here every day the sun shines and eat this light. Hung in the bell of desire.”

SpiritualityZenMysticismSaintsGardensMenstruationPhotosynthesisApophaticKataphatic
Book:The Barn at the End of the World: The Apprenticeship of a Quaker, Buddhist Shepherd
Create image

“Once we start to work with Feminine power we begin to see that it is not our minds that are in control of this power – it ebbs and flows with the movements of the planets, the procession of the seasons, the moons and tides, our own internal cycles of menstruality, anniversaries, the events around us. All these and more impact our experience and expressions of power. We learn to become aware of these various patterns and their impact on us and work more consciously with rather than against or in spite of them. We learn that they are all part of the same process. We open towards the energy, rather than shut down to it. We learn to trust the flow.”

EnergyCyclesFeminine PowerMenstruationPriestessSacred FeminineWomen S PowerBlood MysteriesMenstruality
Book:Burning Woman
Create image

“Mary me dijo: ahora ya eres una mujer, y eso me hizo llorar. Entonces ella me abrazó y me consoló mejor de lo que hubiera podido hacerlo mi madre, que siempre estaba demasiado ocupada, cansada o enferma. Después me prestó su enagua de franela roja hasta que yo tuviera una y me enseñó cómo doblar y sujetar los paños y me dijo que algunos lo llamaban «la maldición de Eva», cosa que a ella le parecía una estupidez, ya que la verdadera maldición de Eva era tener que aguantar las idioteces de Adán que, en cuanto surgió un problema, le echó toda la culpa a ella.”

ReligionEvangelismReligiónEveMenstruationMenstruación
Book:Alias Grace
Create image

“In 1986, Gloria Steinem wrote that if men got periods, they 'would brag about how long and how much': that boys would talk about their menstruation as the beginning of their manhood, that there would be 'gifts, religious ceremonies' and sanitary supplies would be 'federally funded and free'. I could live without the menstrual bragging - though mine is particularly impressive - and ceremonial parties, but seriously: Why aren't tampons free?”

IfsMenLongWould BeReligiousPartyBoysMinesHe ManPeriodsManhoodCeremonyImpressiveSuppliesBraggingBragGloriaMenstruationSanitaryTampons
Author:Jessica Valenti
Create image

“Nobody had counseled women to expect the changes in bleeding patterns which are typically associated with IUD use, and they received no support from the health clinics with their problems. Because in traditional Hindu culture menstruation is associated with a variety of social taboos, prolonged menstrual bleeding produced conflicts within families.”

UseProblemCultureSocialSupportConflictPatternsTraditionalVarietyTabooBleedingClinicMenstruationSocial Taboos
Author:Ruth Simmons
Create image

“Because in traditional Hindu culture menstruation is associated with a variety of social taboos, prolonged menstrual bleeding produced conflicts within families. The whole idea of fertility regulation was still extremely new in this setting and many husbands and other family members were angry when they found out that women had decided on their own to use the method and had gone to the clinic in secret.”

StillsIdeasWholeUseCultureFoundSocialSecretGoneHusbandConflictMembersDecidedMethodAngrySettingTraditionalSettingsVarietyRegulationTabooBleedingFamily MembersFertilityClinicMenstruationSocial Taboos
Author:Ruth Simmons
Create image

“She got to you, too, huh?" I said, sliding onto the bench seat across from him. "Actually, I called her." Luca grinned. "I'm vomiting from a possible case of food poisoning. You?" "Sudden onset menstruation." He nodded respectfully. "Classic." "Yeah, but I should have gone for something more long-term. Yours will get you out of the whole afternoon. Ferris Bueller would be proud.”

ShouldLongSaidWholeWould BeTermCasesGoneProudShould HaveYeahClassicLong TermSeatsAfternoonBe ProudBenchesPoisoningVomitingMenstruationKayleeFood PoisoningFerris Bueller
Author:Rachel Vincent
Create image

“It's not easy to diagnose because depending where the endometrial deposits are, the symptoms can be quite different. It's an unrecognized problem among teenage girls, and it's something that every young woman who has painful menstruation should be aware of... It's a condition that is curable if it's caught early. If not, if it's allowed to run on, it can cause infertility, and it can really, really mess up your life.”

IfsShouldDifferentProblemRunningYoungGirlCausesEasyConditionsCaughtPainfulMessInterviewsYoung WomenTeenageSymptomsDepositsTeenage GirlInfertilityMenstruationNpr
Author:Hilary Mantel
Create image