I’ve always felt heroic about my life… As a child, I remember little girls in the playground moaning about how boys could do more than they could. I didn’t think that was the case at all. My parents didn’t treat me as a girl.

I have too many fantasies to be a housewife. I guess I am a fantasy.

My mom is American, so I was raised in her household in my formative years.

I didn’t like the way I looked in pictures – when I saw myself on a digital camera, I was like, ‚Eesh.‘

When I was a boy, I always saw myself as a hero in comic books and in movies. I grew up believing this dream.

I go to sleep thinking about my kids being spoiled and I wake up thinking about it.

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 hated to be treated as a child. I thought it was the worst situation.

I thought I couldn’t make a difference because I was too small.

Whoever does not have a good father should procure one.

I am fearless.

My goal is just to be respected as a man when I walk down the street with my family. I don’t care what your job is, you’re not gonna talk down to me, you’re not gonna try to get a rise out of me. I’m a man first. And in establishing that, some interesting things have happened.

And when a woman’s will is as strong as the man’s who wants to govern her, half her strength must be concealment.

You are victors, not victims!

I’m dying to be a great dad one day, whenever that day comes.

What I am looking for is not out there, it is in me.

I would not like to be the only woman on the court.

I never think of myself as an icon. What is in other people’s minds is not in my mind. I just do my thing.

When I was 11, the whole world was closed to me. I just felt I was on the outside of the world.

A child who is allowed to be disrespectful to his parents will not have true respect for anyone.

I want people to follow their dreams, yes… but I’m not interested in telling young black kids how to be rappers… I want to show them that there’s so many other paths you can take, besides a rapper or basketball player.

Feminists wish women to seem like men. They’re not men.

At 13 years old, I realized I could start my own band. I could write my own song, I could record my own record. I could start my own label. I could release my own record. I could book my own shows. I could write and publish my own fanzine. I could silk-screen my own T-shirt. I could do this all myself.

Behold the child, by Nature’s kindly law pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.

Encouragement to all women is – let us try to offer help before we have to offer therapy. That is to say, let’s see if we can’t prevent being ill by trying to offer a love of prevention before illness.

Women should be obscene and not heard.

Sometimes it is better to light a flamethrower than curse the darkness.

We are Divine enough to ask and we are important enough to receive.

I have never felt that the one thing that I am ‚known for‘ is what I am.

My family has very strong women. My mother never laughed at my dream of Africa, even though everyone else did because we didn’t have any money, because Africa was the ‚dark continent‘, and because I was a girl.

I want to do a certain thing in the world, and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.

My father, who was jailed for stealing on more than one occasion, just abandoned his fatherly responsibilities and disappeared. I grew up working from the time I was nine years of age. Money was a big issue everywhere I lived.

One has children in the expectation of dying before them. In fact, you want to make damn sure you die before them, just as you plant a tree or build a house knowing, hoping that it will outlive you. That’s how the human species has done as well as it has.

On every front there are clear answers out there that can make this country stronger, but we’re going to break through the fear and the frustration people are feeling. Our job is to make sure that even as we make progress, that we are also giving people a sense of hope and vision for the future.

Key is never be afraid of being yourself. Never!

A gender line… helps to keep women not on a pedestal, but in a cage.

I’m not an analyzer. I’ve got a son that analyzes everything and everybody. But I don’t analyze people.

Train up a child in the way that he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

It doesn’t matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I’m a woman or a man.

If you don’t live your life, then who will?

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual and surest support?

I’m not a supermodel. That’s not what I do. What I do is music. I want my fans to feel the way I do, to know what they have to offer is just as important, more important, than what’s happening on the outside.

When I was a kid, I had a tendency to criticize. But when I did, my mum would whisk me off to the bathroom to stand in front of a mirror. Ten minutes, never less. To think about how criticism is a poor reflection on the one who criticizes.

I read to my kid, but I can’t stand reading.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.

If you’re working 50 hours a week to try to maintain family income, and your children have the kinds of aspirations that come from being flooded with television from age one, and associations have declined, people end up hopeless, even though they have every option.

Never was it given to mortal man – To lie so boldly as we women can.

We don’t have to let extremists define us.

My parents were just constantly affirming me in everything that I did. Late at night, I’d wake up and hear my mother talking over my bed, saying, ‚You’re going to do great on this test. You can do anything you want.‘

No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path.

I long remained a child, and I am still one in many respects.

There’s nothing better than having a baby. I’ve always loved children. I used to work summers at the YMCA and be in charge of, like, 30 preschool kids. I knew that when I had a child, I’d be overwhelmed, and it’s true… I can’t tell you how much my attitude has changed since we’ve got Frances. Holding my baby is the best drug in the world.

The childcare tax credit makes some sense.

When I am playing baseball, I give it all that I have on the ball field. When the ball game is over, I certainly don’t take it home. My little girl who is sitting out there wouldn’t know the difference between a third strike and a foul ball. We don’t talk about baseball at home.

Growing up I didn’t watch movies.

There are a lot of good women in New York.

Women feel empowered when they can do the things that are supposed to be only for men, you know? It breaks boundaries, it’s liberating, and it’s empowering when you feel like, ‚Well, I can do that, too.‘

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinions of himself than on the opinions of others.

My biggest hobby is hanging out with my family and kids.

Man does not control his own fate. The women in his life do that for him.

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.