“I believe a unique core self is born into every human being; the result of millennia of environment and heredity combined in an unpredictable way that could never happen before or again.”

The story of women’s struggle for equality belongs to no single feminist nor to any one organization but to the collective efforts of all who care about human rights

Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It’s about making life more fair for women everywhere. It’s not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It’s about baking a new pie.

learning must travel the distance from head to heart.

What I think we need to do is infuse everyday and every action with the kind of values we hope will be in the future, with kindness, with nurturing, with dreams, ambition, using your talents, not resorting to violence, other forms of conflict resolution, with humor, with poetry, with music.

Women have two choices: Either she’s a feminist or a masochist.

The purpose of feminism is to free the uniqueness of the individual and to understand that inside each of us is a unique human being who is a combination of heredity and environment.

Life after 50 or 60 is itself another country, as different as adolescence is from childhood, or as adulthood is from adolescence – and just as adventurous.

If you really want to be lonely, get married.

But somewhere within each of us, buried at varying depths depending on the age and degree of neglect or abuse, shame or coercion we endured, there is a resistant, daydreaming, rebellious, creative, unique child — a true self who is waiting.

Empathy is the most radical of human emotions.

Helping begins with listening.

The origins of violence against women by men are not biological. If that were the case, it would exist in every culture. And it doesn’t exist in every culture.

So whatever you want to do, just do it… Making a damn fool of yourself is absolutely essential.

Women tend to be conservative in youth and get more radical as they get older because they lose power with age. So, if a young woman is not a feminist, I say, just wait.

Law and justice are not always the same. When they aren’t, destroying the law may be the first step toward changing it.

There is a naive belief that injustice only had to be pointed out in order to be cured.

Man’s most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe.

I truly believe there should be no time limit to childhood.

I will be patient till even patience tires of my patience.

You think you can’t change the world? You can.

I’m an artist. Artists don’t need permission to work. Regardless of whether I’m acting or not, I write. I write when I’m tired in fact, because I believe your most pure thoughts surface.

The last thing my dad said to me before he passed away was, ‘I know you’re gonna be OK. I’m not worried about you’.

Only you and you alone can change your situation. Don’t blame it on anything or anyone.

I don’t believe in collective guilt, but I do believe in collective responsibility.