I was always trying to make up for my size, to compensate. So to get people to take you seriously, you have to come at things with a great deal of strength. You have to emphasize that the way you are is unusual. That you don't come along every day.

I aspired to be extremely sophisticated.

I was always trying to make up for my size, to compensate. So to get people to take you seriously, you have to come at things with a great deal of strength. You have to emphasize that the way you are is unusual. That you don't come along every day.

Everybody either wanted to take care of me or push me around, you know? I was teased a lot, sure I was, of course. Fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, everybody was taking their spurts except me. I was not growing up.

I think people have always liked in me the combination of being the underdog because I'm a tiny woman but I have enormous authority in myself.

When I was 16, nobody else talked like me. Nobody else sounded like me.

I can't be a man. But I can embrace the head of a man, the intelligence of a man, the spirit of a man.