I have always been supported by the men in my life, which is why I think I've been successful in many of my endeavors. My father believed I could do anything. He even wrote to Al Gore and told him that he thought I should be his vice president.

One of my mentors was Patricia Schroeder, and one night she came to me on the floor and she said to me, "Why are we sitting in Congress, when a lot of women would try to do it and couldn't? Why are we here and others aren't?" And I thought back and said it was because my father believed in me and she said the same thing, she said her father believed in her and thought she could do anything.

Healthy moms mean healthy families. When my Republican colleagues held a hearing about birth control and refused to include a single woman on the first panel as a witness, I asked, "Where are the women?"

More women are working because they have to, that's what it takes to put the food on the table and pay the rent. And yet we have not changed our policies to support the family. The right wing goes to the floor, and they did when they were in power, and talk about family values. Well, where are they? Family values is support for child care. Family values is equal pay for equal work so that women are paid appropriately.

I write about one of my bills that says pharmacists cannot be doctors. They cannot determine what they will or will not sell, and you find that many pharmacists will not sell birth control. The movement has gone not just against the access of reproductive rights to abortion; the movement has gone to birth control. They're going after birth control.

A friend of mine was married to an assistant church pastor who regularly beat her up. He was smart ?- he'd do it in a way that the bruises didn't show. For the longest time, she dealt with it. Who would believe the minister was a wife beater?! Meanwhile, my friend ? - An attorney! ? - Suffered in silence.

I asked, "What do you think the most important advancement was for women in recent years?" And the majority, the item that polled the most, was Hillary Clinton's run for President. Can you believe that? Women saw that as a breakthrough in something very, very important. She didn't win. And I think another thing that her race did was it showed sexism in our society.