We can see, from California to New York, from Maine to Florida, Seattle to New Mexico - everywhere there are women's groups. Everywhere there are women who have gotten together to examine global warming, and women who have gotten together to prepare each other for single parenting - there are women who have come together to be supportive to those whose mates are in prison, male or female, partners are in prison. All sorts of gatherings of women. I mean, I'm just celebrating my 80th year on this planet, and I look back 50 years ago and there was nothing like that.

A person is the product of their dreams. So make sure to dream great dreams. And then try to live your dream.

No matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.

It is a no-fail, incontrovertible reality: If you get, give. If you learn, teach. You can't do anything with that except do it.

I wasn't a pretty girl. I was six feet tall at 15, you know.

When my grandmother died, I realized that even if I had millions of dollars, I couldn't find her anywhere on earth. My next thought was that I would die. I looked at my life and thought, "I'm afraid to die." I concluded that whether I was afraid or not, I would die. It was one of the most important crossroads in my life, once I realized that no matter what, I would do this thing, the next step was to think, "If I am going to do the most difficult and frightening thing - dying - is it possible that I could do some difficult and impossible things that are good?"

Growing up at my grandmother's table, she always had rice. She might do something as exotic as potatoes or spaghetti, but there was still always rice, just in case you needed a little rice fix.