We don’t have to let extremists define us.

Women must tell men always that they are the strong ones. They are the big, the strong, the wonderful. In truth, women are the strong ones. It is just my opinion, I am not a professor.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

The world, as a rule, does not live on beaches and in country clubs.

If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life, then you know how to vote within a democracy. But if you don’t know how to read, you don’t know how to decide. That’s the great thing about our country – we’re a democracy of readers, and we should keep it that way.

The battle for the individual rights of women is one of long standing and none of us should countenance anything which undermines it.

The society based on production is only productive, not creative.

The work is the work. The work is not me.

Once spirit was God, then it became man, and now it is even becoming mob.

Together, we can help make sure that every family that walks into a restaurant can make an easy, healthy choice.

Good humor is one of the best articles of dress one can wear in society.

I don’t want to be fake. I’m just being me. And I have the power to break stereotypes and whatever useless rules that society puts on us.

I am whatever you say I am; if I wasn’t, then why would you say I am.

Everywhere I go, the kids call me ‚the book lady.‘ The older I get, the more appreciative I seem to be of the ‚book lady‘ title. It makes me feel more like a legitimate person, not just a singer or an entertainer. But it makes me feel like I’ve done something good with my life and with my success.

You can choose a future where more Americans have the chance to gain the skills they need to compete, no matter how old they are or how much money they have. Education was the gateway to opportunity for me. It was the gateway for Michelle. And now more than ever, it is the gateway to a middle-class life.

Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us.

If you feel that there’s the author and then the character, then the book is not working. People have a habit of identifying the author with the narrator, and you can’t, obviously, be all of the narrators in all of your books, or else you’d be a very strange person indeed.

I’m not particularly a feminist, but if you get women off the animal cycle of reproduction and give them some say in how many children they’ll have, immediately the floor will rise.

I guess it’s flattering that everyone believed I was those characters, but it also is dehumanizing.

If there is only one thing in my life that I am proud of, it’s that I’ve never been a kept woman.

Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.

I am fearless.

Music is always a commentary on society.

People love conspiracy theories.

I have never been bewildered for long in any fight with our enemies – I was Armed with Insight.

Through my films I’m eventually trying to one day tell the truth. I don’t know if I’m ever going to get there, but I’m slowly letting pieces of myself out there and then maybe by the time I’m 85, I’ll look back and say, ‚All right, that about sums it up.‘

What people see on court is another side of me; it’s not me.

I’m confident in who I am. I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve accepted things that are me, as opposed to feeling pressure to explain myself to people around me. That’s just the way I’ve always tried to be. It didn’t change when I became a star.

For the introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state; since styles of music are never disturbed without affecting the most important political institutions.

It’s a very strange thing being recognized or looked upon as someone special.

All of these young people have some kind of potential in them. And if we don’t invest in them as a nation, regardless of where they come from or what color they are, if we don’t invest in them, we lose.

What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.

You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!

For people who may think they know, or have snippets of who I am, you can attack that person. That’s part of being a public figure.

Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.

Maybe every city has a unique sensibility, but we don’t have names for what they are or haven’t identified them all. We can’t pinpoint exactly what makes each city’s people unique yet.

Memories are thoughts that arise. They’re not realities. Only when you believe that they are real, then they have the power over you. But when you realize it’s just another thought arising about the past, then you can have a spacious relationship with that thought. The thought no longer has you in its grip.

An asylum for the sane would be empty in America.

While victimhood in America is exalted, I don’t think our veterans should join those ranks.

Certainly in the next 50 years we shall see a woman president, perhaps sooner than you think. A woman can and should be able to do any political job that a man can do.

I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act.

Women must pay for everything. They do get more glory than men for comparable feats, but, they also get more notoriety when they crash.

I have the people behind me and the people are my strength.

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

The voice I use is a very old hardware speech synthesizer made in 1986. I keep it because I have not heard a voice I like better and because I have identified with it.

All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded the individual.

A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.

I don’t really regard myself as a political figure.

I’ve never thought about any kind of prejudice about women in country music because I never felt like it affected me. I was fortunate enough to come about in a time when I didn’t feel that kind of energy at all, and it was always my theory that if you want to play in the same ballgame as the boys, you’ve got to work as hard as them.

The very word ‚secrecy‘ is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

Before all else, be armed.

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still.

It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.

In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress ‚suspects.‘

Insanity in individuals is something rare – but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Me, as a person, I grow. I’m like a chameleon. You know? That is a gift and a curse for me. But more so a gift, because it never puts me in a box.

People who bowl vote. Bowlers are not the cultural elite.

The spirit is there in every boy; it has to be discovered and brought to light.

In America today, we are nearer a final triumph over poverty than is any other land.

A saint is tolerant and is attentive to the pleadings of other human beings, not only to spoken messages but to unspoken messages as well.