“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
“The things I find most beautiful about a person are almost never physical.”
“The early morning hour should be dedicated to praise: do not the birds set us the example?”
“There are three ways to ultimate success: The first way is to be kind. The second way is to be kind. The third way is to be kind.”
“I would much rather be the ‘obnoxious feminist girl’ than be complicit in my own dehumanization.”
“All morning it has been raining. In the language of the garden, this is happiness.”
“I am a huge Woody Allen fan. Although I’ve only seen Antz. But I’ll tell you something. What I respect about that man is that when he was going through all that stuff that was coming out in the press, about how Antz was just a rip-off of A Bug’s Life, he stayed true to his films. Or at least the film that I saw. Which again, was Antz. The thing is, I thought A Bug’s Life was better, much better than Antz. Point is, don’t listen to your critics. Listen to your fans.”
“I am not afraid of storms for I am learning how to sail my ship.”
“Compassion hurts. When you feel connected to everything, you also feel responsible for everything. And you cannot turn away. Your destiny is bound with the destinies of others. You must either learn to carry the universe or be crushed by it. You must grow strong enough to love the world, yet empty enough to sit down at the same table with its worst horrors.”
“Hillary Clinton swallowed slander and humiliation and irrational hatred for three decades and she didn’t quit, and here she was, just a hair’s breadth from the presidency of the United States — the first woman ever to be trusted with the rudder of the world. It made me cry.
I cried because I want my daughters to feel that blazing pride, that affirmation of their boundless capacity — not from their husbands, but from their world, from the atmosphere, from inviolable wells of certainty inside themselves. I cried because it’s not fair, and I’m so tired, and every woman I know is so tired. I cried because I don’t even know what it feels like to be taken seriously — not fully, not in that whole, unequivocal, confident way that’s native to handshakes between men. I cried because it does things to you to always come second.
Whatever your personal opinion of the Clintons, as politicians or as human beings, that dynamic is real. We, as a culture, do not take women seriously on a profound level. We do not believe women. We do not trust women. We do not like women.
I understand that many men cannot see it, and plenty more do not care. I know that many men will read this and laugh, or become defensive, or call me hysterical, or worse, and that’s fine. I am used to it. It doesn’t make me wrong.”