Unless men are active allies, we'll never end violence against women and girls.

Success itself doesn't give you happiness. It's what you do with your success that gives you happiness.

For many years now, I feel like my own body struggle has been linked and connected with women I meet in the world. I think we're in this together.

But my body was telling its story. I have read a lot of stuff about cancer. I needed this book. I wish I'd had this book when I had cancer. I wanted someone to be talking to me about "fart floors." I wanted somebody telling me what it was like to have a colostomy bag. I felt so alone. And if you're a person who's been traumatized by past abuse, it's so potentially re-traumatizing. You slip right into "oh my god, this is the only person this has happened to before" mentality: "I'm especially bad and I have especially bad cancer..."

What I would say to young women is: Pay attention to the real. Pay attention to what you're really thirsting for. What do you really want? And I think that's much harder to decipher in a culture that has no interest in it. What interests me is, are we going to wake in time? Are human beings going to wake up to ourselves, to the incredible poverty that's on this planet, to what we're doing to the earth, to what we're doing to women, to what we're doing to boys? That's what's important.

Cherish your solitude. Take trains by yourself to places you have never been. Sleep out alone under the stars.

Go so far away that you stop being afraid of not coming back.