I am an example of what is possible when girls from the very beginning of their lives are loved and nurtured by people around them. I was surrounded by extraordinary women in my life, who taught me about quiet, strength and dignity.

We need to reshape our own perception of how we view ourselves. We have to step up as women and take the lead.

I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that’s how I operate my life.

I’m tough, I’m ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, okay.

When a man gives his opinion, he’s a man. When a woman gives her opinion, she’s a bitch.

So here is the quick way of working out if you’re a feminist. Put your hand in your pants. a) Do you have a vagina? and b) Do you want to be in charge of it? If you said “yes” to both, then congratulations! You’re a feminist.

I suppose I could have stayed home and baked cookies and had teas, but what I decided to do, was to fulfil my profession, which I entered before my husband was in public life.

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.

If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman.

Don’t compromise yourself. You are all you’ve got. There is no yesterday, no tomorrow, it’s all the same day.

I’m a feminist because I believe in women… It’s a heavy word, feminism, but it’s not one I think we should run from. I’m proud to be a feminist.

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it.

Women have to harness their power – it’s absolutely true. It’s just learning not to take the first no. And if you can’t go straight ahead, you go around the corner.

If you think you’re too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito.

Instead of looking at the past, I put myself ahead twenty years and try to look at what I need to do now in order to get there then.

I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.

A woman is like a tea bag – you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.

I am the American Dream. I am the epitome of what the American Dream basically said. It said, you could come from anywhere and be anything you want in this country. That’s exactly what I’ve done. I am where I am, because I believe in all possibilities.

If you obey all the rules, you miss all the fun.

Never dull your shine for somebody else.

The question isn’t who’s going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.

I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.

Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.

Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what a feminist is. I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.

Houseworks the hardest work in the world. Thats why men wont do it.

At the time of independence in 1975, Mozambique was extremely poor. Many Portuguese residents abandoned the country, leaving only a handful of well-educated Mozambicans to try to run the country.

If you travel in time and space, most of the people you know and love will eventually be gone. But you'll also be able to go and find them again.

Enough is as good as a feast

If everyone took personal responsibility for their animals, we wouldn't have a lot of the animal problems that we do. I'm a big spay-and-neuter supporter. Don't have babies if you're not going to take care of those babies. We don't need more. We just need to take care of the ones we have. Take responsibility and breathe kindness.

But that is a valid, continuing service that that music - which is, in some cases, 80 or 90 years old - is rendering. And proving its own timelessness.

Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.

In the budget, the president will call for a five-year freeze on discretionary spending other than for national security. This will reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade and bring this category of spending to the lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was president.

My biggest musical influences are probably my parents.

Theres a natural instinct embedded in friendship a sympathy that makes us willing to fight for someone we like when they are treated unjustly.

Having regrets and things, it just takes your time away.

My sentiments for the American cause, from the Stamp Act downward, have never changed... I am still of opinion that it is the cause of liberty and of human nature.

Washington is dominated by big money.

I really always expected to somebody to make me happy and I don't think you can really enter into a relationship until you are happy.

Front yards are not made to walk in, but, at most, through, and you could go in the back way.

The fact is I'm not making a film in order to draw pictures or make images about Iran.

I would eventually leave the business in 1999 to work full-time as a writer, but during the previous decade, I would advise French businessmen on how to succeed in Germany; tell Americans what to do in Eastern Europe; show the Spanish how to become more like the Americans. I spent one particularly haunting year advising bankers in Mexico.

It is statistically proven that the strongest institution that guarantees procreation and continuity of the generations is marriage between one man and one woman. We don't want genocide. We don't want to destroy the sacred institution of marriage.

Conservatives must avoid the siren song of schism, or all is lost.

Floating in a lake lying in a hammock playing a bit of Scrabble...thats what Im in need of.

Late February days and now at last Might you have thought that winters woe was past So fair the sky was and so soft the air.

I gave 'em a sword. And they stuck it in, and they twisted it with relish. And I guess if I had been in their position, I'd have done the same thing.