43 pages 1 hour read

Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Women Who Run with the Wolves

Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1992

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Important Quotes

Quotation Mark Icon

“For us the issue is simple. Without us, Wild Woman dies. Without Wild Woman, we die. Para Vida, for true life, both must live.”


(Introduction , Page 20)

Rediscovering the inner Wild Woman isn’t an isolated pursuit. The archetype belongs to all women, and all women share a responsibility to keep it alive. The concept serves as a wake-up call for all women.

Quotation Mark Icon

“Intuition is the treasure of a woman’s psyche. It is like a divining instrument and like a crystal through which one can see with uncanny interior vision.”


(Chapter 3 , Page 70)

Women’s intuition has frequently been denigrated by patriarchal culture as an irrational feature of the female psyche. The author emphasizes the reverse by asserting that intuition leads to deeper truths inaccessible to logic.

Quotation Mark Icon

“To be ourselves causes us to be exiled by many others, and yet to comply with what others want causes us to be exiled from ourselves.”


(Chapter 3 , Page 81)

This quote articulates the age-old dilemma of whether to please others or oneself. Those who choose to please others may gain society’s approval at the cost of their own identity.