I learned to love the journey, not the destination. I learned that this is not a dress rehearsal, and that today is the only guarantee you get.

When you leave college, there are thousands of people out there with the same degree you have; when you get a job, there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life.

If God had meant Harvard professors to appear in People magazine, She wouldn't have invented The New York Review of Books.

That's what makes life so hard for women, that instead of thinking that this is the way things are, we always think it's the way we are.

Ideas are only lethal if you suppress and don't discuss them. Ignorance is not bliss, it's stupid. Banning books shows you don't trust your kids to think and you don't trust yourself to be able to talk to them.

I do tend to be almost kind of Pollyanna-ish person.

When you look at the women that have made a real difference in the world throughout history, what they’ve done has almost always been defined by fearlessness. That’s something I came to at a certain point; I wish I’d come to it younger. Stop looking over your shoulder — there’s nobody who matters back there.