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.

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.

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.

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.

Now equilibrium is the very opposite of disorder.

In this atmosphere I soon became interested in nucleic acids.

Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.

When I was growing up in the house, we'd watch the Oscars.

We can't start over and develop a Saturn 5-type vehicle from scratch.

There are a certain number of extreme behaviours led by fundamentalists who are using their religion for political ends and use extremist techniques.

Willow and I definitely talked about doing a collaboration. She really loves rock music, so she wants to come on and get crazy with me on a track. Which I would love, because she has a fantastic voice.

I'm actually quite conservative.

There is a community of the spirit Join it and feel the delight of walking in the noisy street and being the noise.

When a man has lost all happiness, he's not alive. Call him a breathing corpse.

I expect a tough, hard fight. Liam Smith is coming to win.

Honestly, I'm very much a tomboy.

It's useless to hold a person to anything he says while he's in love, drunk, or running for office.

It may be said that poems are in one way like icebergs: only about a third of their bulk appears above the surface of the page.

I really want to go to Harvard; it's just a matter of timing.

Most things I worry about never happen anyway.

Let not your mind run on what you lack as much as on what you have already.

I don't know whether schooling would have helped me get farther along in music at this time. I doubt it would have.

I was reading William Shawcross's biography of the Queen Mother, dressed in my witch outfit! And you know what? It was a really good mix; it was a therapeutic mix.

The God we serve does not seek out the perfect, but instead uses our imperfections and our shortcomings for his greater good. I am humbled by my own limitations. But where I am weak, He is strong.

If time is money, it seems moral to save time, above all one's own, and such parsimony is excused by consideration for others. One is straight-forward.

A friend never defends a husband who gets his wife an electric skillet for her birthday.