A biography for Mary Beardhasn’t been written yet.
“Grey is my hair colour. I really can't see why I should change it.”
“Roman military tactics were much over-rated. All the clever ones had the same idea, which was to go round the back.”
“I have always hated fancy dress parties.”
“Wherever possible, I try to see things from the other side of the dividing line and to read civilisation 'against the grain.'”
“What is the role of an academic - no matter what they're teaching - within political debate? It has to be that they make issues more complicated. The role of the academic is to make everything less simple.”
“Whatever you say about popular culture, people like people who know things, who are experts, and it doesn't particularly matter what they look like.”
“My mother took me to the British Museum aged five. I had thought people from the past weren't as good as we were, and then I saw the Elgin marbles. Suddenly, the world seemed more complicated.”
“I was not much good as a waitress.”
“Fate has it in for me to be an exhibit: that funny old lady from the telly.”
“You have to do what you feel comfortable with.”
“The history of art is not just the history of artists; it is also the history of the people who viewed art. And that wider perspective can help us see some of the reasons why the art of the ancient world should still matter to us.”
“Democracy requires information. Plato knew that informed decision-making requires knowledge.”
“Gender is a key marker of power and powerlessness. Most of the structures of how our world works are biased in terms of men.”
“At 16, I got into local-education archaeology classes - you got to go to summer digs. It allowed me to be both intellectual and a bad girl with a wicked social life every evening!”
“My mom was born before women had the vote in general elections in England.”
“The thing about being a university teacher is that you're fairly tolerant about young people saying things they shouldn't have said.”
“My fantasy is going into a men's loo. And listening to what they say.”
“I was really good at Latin at school, and because I was good at it, I got more interested and got better at it.”
“If women are not perceived to be fully within the structures of power, surely it is power that we need to redefine rather than women?”
“People who exploit others come to spend an enormous amount of energy wondering about and justifying that exploitation.”