Quotes About Independence

She thought accepting religious maxims meant abdicating independence and not personally struggling with profound questions. It was like learning chemistry by a book rather than an experiment.

Housekeeping, to her, was a way to cultivate a woman's submission and steal time, and she wanted nothing of it.

No one else can take risks for us, or face our losses on our behalf, or give us self-esteem. No one can spare us from life's slings and arrows, and when death comes, we meet it alone.

The way that other people judge me is none of my business.

Imagine what you'd do if it absolutely didn't matter what people thought of you. Got it? Good. Never go back.

She is tough, like a Quiner woman. She works hard and she doesn't feel sorry for herself. At the same time she won't let someone else tell her what she should do with her life.

My work is whatever I want it to be, and I report to no one regularly. The head librarian -- the man in charge of the University's entire collection -- is a figurehead, well-to-do and poorly read, with whom I have only perfunctory contact.

Martha Freeman

It is much harder to be lonely, when you have for a while stopped being lonely. I was used to having only myself, cold and hard as that is; I could live with it. And now I wait, for a voice, a face, a body, that is not going to be here, is not mine, does not in any case wait as I do, nor share this homesickness. […] How to explain that I taught myself to be tough and indifferent, because it mattered too much and learned not even to weep in my mind not to notice.

I have no intention of being a footnote in someone else's life." [on being a war correspondent during WWII]

Since I am devoted to my own freedom, I didn't think it just to deny other people theirs; and a basic freedom must be to be bossed by your own kind, not by foreigners.

What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.

Each year, between 18,500 and 25,000 teenagers "age out" of foster care by virtue of reaching the age at which their legal right to foster care ends

In most states, on the day that a child in foster care turns eighteen, these supports largely disappear. The people who once attended to that child's needs are now either unable or unwilling to continue; a new case demands their time, a new child requires the bed.

Serene silence about your intentions can be incredibly powerful when you are speaking with someone who is trying to control you.

I don't know what I want. I said that at some point, I think. But it isn't that, it's that I don't want anyone to tell me what I want, or to make decisions for me.

Pin-Lee had promised, "Don't worry, I'll preserve your right to wander off like an asshole anytime you like." (I said, "It takes one to know one.")

I don't know what I want. I said that at some point, I think. But it isn't that, it's that I don't want anyone to tell me what I want, or to make decisions for me. That's why I left you, Dr. Mensah, my favorite human. By the time you get this I'll be leaving Corporation Rim. Out of inventory and out of sight. Murderbot end message.

Don't worry, I'll preserve your right to wander off like an asshole anytime you like.

I told Mensah through the feed that I wouldn't speak aloud on the comm anymore. She tapped back an acknowledgment on the feed, and I heard her telling the others to get off my feed and my comm, that she was going to be the only one speaking to me so I wasn't distracted. Mensah underestimated my ability to ignore humans but I appreciated the thought.

Self-determination was a pain in the ass sometimes but it beat the alternative by a lot.

I didn't want to see helpless humans. I'd rather see smart ones rescuing each other.

The Cordans believed the women needed men to provide for them; Moon had no idea why. He knew that Selis in particular was perfectly capable of chasing down any number of grasseaters and beating them to death with a club, so he didn't see why she couldn't hunt for herself.

It must be hard to respect other people's privacy when you've had to fight and scheme for every minute of your own. Hard not to be paranoid when you remember all the times your paranoia was justified.