If family and society tell you its unfeminine, not really womanly, to be aggressive, to speak up, to have strong opinions, to take up space, then women won't trust their own voice, because to be heard and to be influential, you've got to have a way to sing out with passion and love and self-trust - to sing out your song for everyone to hear.

I'm not naive. I know how hard it is to get along.

When women hear each other's stories, told from the heart, it gives us inspiration to keep on going.

There's something in our makeup and in our bodies that really wants to luxuriate more in just the joy of being alive and not always consuming, creating, building. There's something inside of us that wants desperately to stop and experience and just be - not just always do.

If you're interested in opening the doors to the heavens, start with the door to your own secret self. See what happens when you offer to another a glimpse of who you truly are. When your heart is undefended, you make it safe for whomever you meet to put down his burden of hiding, and then you both can walk through the open door.

Talking to each other instead of talking about each other is not some kind of nicey-nice (ph) idea. It's the difference between societies falling apart and societies getting something wonderful done.

Forgiveness doesn't mean being a wimp. It doesn't mean being weak. It doesn't mean having no principles and no values. Sometimes we have to stand firm for what we believe and make really hard decisions.