“The tenacity and fearlessness I had witnessed in the people—our guides, the young rebels in the boat, the nun—and the inspiring way they conducted their lives in the face of constant danger, helped me to see that the distinction between what we think we cannot do and what we must do is often not a matter of choice. On a personal level, I was brought face-to-face with my own fears, which I discovered were more relenting than I had thought. Experiencing fear can paradoxically move us more toward courage than cowardice.”

“When I was growing up, no one could get away with telling me I couldn't do something "because you're a girl." In fact, if someone wanted me not to do something, that was the worst thing they could say: It practically guaranteed I'd run out and try to do it.”

“I believe that words are strong, that they can overwhelm what we fear when fear seems more awful than life is good.”

“Enjoy being bold, and if that is scary at first, marvel at your ability to walk through fear.”

“What's the link between the woman who boldly fights for social justice and the one who boldly has fun? Both are acting powerfully, because each is rejecting preconceived notions of how females 'should' behave.”

“Sometimes we bring to a struggle or cause the gifts we see most clearly, a courage, a strength, or a charm others have told us we have. But often we find more is asked of us than that, more than we intended or thought we possessed. We are asked to offer that which we thought dearest, to forgive what seemed unpardonable, to face what we feared the most and endure it. Sometimes we have to travel to the last step a path that was not of our own choosing. But I promise you this ... it will lead to a greater joy in the end. The difficulty is that the end is beyond our sight, it is a matter of faith, not of knowledge.”

“Parenthood abruptly catapults us into a permanent relationship with a stranger, and the more alien the stranger, the stronger the whiff of negativity. We depend on the guarantee in our children's faces that we will not die. Children whose defining quality annihilates that fantasy of immortality are a particular insult; we must love them for themselves, and not for the best of ourselves in them, and that is a great deal harder to do. Loving our own children is an exercise for the imagination.”