Quotes About Individuality

Perhaps the most revolutionary act for a woman will be a self-willed journey—and to be welcomed when she comes home.

In most societies, a woman is encouraged to give birth to another person more than she is encouraged to give birth to herself.

I think we each come out of the womb with some unique way of looking at the world and if we don't express it, we loose faith in ourselves.

There is no such thing as a perfect leader. We have to learn to lead ourselves.

How long before both women and men are allowed to see self-respecting rebellion as a lifelong possibility?

This balance between tribe and individuality, community and uniqueness, was a surprise in a world that makes us think we have to make a choice between them.

I pray for the courage To walk naked At any age To wear red and purple, To be unladylike, Inappropriate, Scandalous and incorrect To the very end.

Basically, I feel different from most other women. I feel I don't have to put on an act. If I'm not feminine enough for someone, I don't care, because femininity is different in everyone's mind.

the most revolutionary act for a woman will be a self-willed journey—and to be welcomed when she comes home.

You're always the person you were when you were born," she says impatiently. "You just keep finding new ways to express it.

But for women especially, bras, panties, bathing suits, and other stereotypical gear are visual reminders of a commercial, idealized feminine image that our real and diverse female bodies can't possibly fit. Without those visual references, however, each individual woman's body can be accepted on its own terms. We stop being comparatives. We begin to be unique.

You're always the person you were when you were born. You just keep finding new ways to express it.

Perhaps we'll only be fully at ease with ourselves when we can appreciate scars as symbols of experience, often experiences that other women share, and see our bodies as unique chapters in a shared story.

Inside, each of us has a purple motorcycle.

As Vita Sackville-West wrote: I worshipped dead men for their strength, Forgetting I was strong.

In the words of so many daughters who don't yet know that a female fate is not a personal fault, I told myself: I'm not going to be anything like my mother.

If I had one piece of advice to give to young girls, I would say, "Don't listen to my advice. Listen to the voice inside." It's not important that they know who I am, it's important that they know who they are.

We don't win by imitating what we're against.

Just because we all have wombs doesn't mean we have to be mothers, just like we all have vocal cords doesn't mean we're all opera singers.

Humbled by this response and looking for advice on my own future now that I'm past seventy, I ask her how she has remained herself all these years. She looks at me as if at a slow pupil. "You're always the person you were when you were born," she says impatiently. "You just keep finding new ways to express it.

Last week in an airport, a place I so often am, I noticed that the clerk who was helping me didn't ask me if I wanted a wheelchair, as I guess age guidelines required her to do. She just smiled and said she could see I didn't need one. On my return, another airline clerk looked only at her computer and so ordered a wheelchair, complete with attendant, that might have been needed somewhere else. To one, I was an individual human being. To the other, I was a group.

not everyone wants the same thing. A just law can be flexible. To be just, a law has to be flexible. She has saved the day.

Girls need to know they can break the rules. If the nuns had told me that, I could have saved twenty years.

Soon we discovered the intensity of interest in the simple idea that each person's shared humanity and individual uniqueness far outweighed any label by group of birth, whether sex, race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, religious heritage, or anything else.