I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femaleness and my femininity. And I want to be respected in all of my femaleness because I deserve to be.

Never ever accept 'Because You Are A Woman' as a reason for doing or not doing anything.

The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.

We teach girls shame; close your legs, cover yourself, we make them feel as though by being born female they're already guilty of something.

To choose to write is to reject silence.

Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.

If you start thinking about being likable you are not going to tell your story honestly.

There are people who dislike you because you do not dislike yourself.

Our society teaches a woman at a certain age who is unmarried to see it as a deep personal failure. While a man at a certain age who is unmarried has not quite come around to making his pick.

Privilege blinds, because it's in its nature to blind. Don't let it blind you too often. Sometimes you will need to push it aside in order to see clearly.

Culture does not make people. People make culture.

And I wondered how it would feel to be in Heaven and not have my face matter anymore. Just like how it never, ever mattered to Daisy.

But when the flash flood crosses your path, when the lion leaps at you from the grasses, advanced self-awareness is an unaffordable indulgence. The brain stem does its best.

These movies are like my kids. I just love them to death. Some of them go to Harvard and some of them can barely graduate high school.

Geometry is the art of correct reasoning from incorrectly drawn figures.

But I hadn't known what love was. And I wondered how you could ever be sure, when you thought you loved someone, if you really did.

Do you really think a man must be strong, masculine, dominating, and the woman frail, obedient and sensitive? This is a conventional idea. Reality is quite different.

Life is a malady in which sleep soothes us every sixteen hours; it is a palliation; death is the remedy.

It's always great to play parts that are larger than life.

What transforms us is not what we do but our integration with WHAT IS.