Mazie Hirono Quotes

Young women today, as in the fifties, find themselves entering the big world and having to make choices.

If wanted to play a sport, I played a sport. If I wanted to do things that many girls born in 1950 didn't do, I did it.

There's not really a choice about, am I going to pursue a typical career? Because I'm not the typical standard, so that's not even an option.

The expectation was I would get married and become a mother and settle down. We didn't have any role models. We saw teachers and doctors and nurses, but I'm not a teacher, and there was no possibility of being a doctor or a nurse. I had to work and find my own way.

When I was in high school, in my generation, I thought that you got a logical, sensible job, or you got married.

I think I always had an unconventional career because I didn't fit the mould of the conventional heroine.

When I was in fourth grade, we were learning vocabulary words, and the word nonconformist came up. The teacher said, "It's somebody who whatever everybody is doing, they do the opposite." I remember raising my hand and saying, "Mrs. Christiansen, I would like to be a nonconformist."

I just don't fit into the box.

I have followed my heart my whole life - the crazy kid, a contrarian by nature, and I've been in trouble in points in my career.

Other people will call me a rebel, but I just feel like I'm living my life and doing what I want to do. Sometimes people call that rebellion, especially when you're a woman.

I don't imagine my parents are too excited about my kind of life. The surrounding weirdness bothers them. Still, I think they're pretty good. Their lives are based on what their friends think, just like ours are.

I reached a time in college when I didn't know what I wanted to do. At that time, women's careers were essentially nursing, secretarial and teaching. My mother advised me to get my teacher's certificate.

Every single person, pretty much, is taught what they're supposed to do: go to school, get a job, find someone to love, get married, have kids, raise the kids, and then die. Nobody questions that. What if you want to do something different?

When I grew up, people said, 'You'll never be the man your dad was.' And I said, 'Gee, I hope not.'

I guess I'm attracted to these off beat roles because my life has been a bit abnormal. The only thing I have a problem with is being labeled.

For one thing I tend not to see myself in various moulds that people fit me into.

People have certain ideas of what they think you should be, and I have fought that categorisation my whole life.

There is no right way to do life.

I didn't want to be behind a desk. I didn't want to do a normal job. I had made my mind up. I became despondent prematurely. I had my mid-life crisis when I was 16. I suppose I'd agree with that. But acting has helped me develop a lot in my private life.

I got the 'I don't want the normal job' bug. At home, we have countless career advisors who would tell us to work in department stores and stay below the bar and not overreach our grasp. I didn't believe any of them.

I am a different type of female. I am not your typical wife of a successful man.

I think a woman's role is not just confined to being a homemaker and have babies, but a lot more.

For all the oddballs and misfits out there, eventually, if you just follow your path, you will reach somewhere no one else has. You are uniquely meant to do something that only you can do.

I was brought up to be uncompromisingly bloody-minded by my mother. She equipped me, without knowing it, to be someone who is creative rather than an entertainer. Not many girls are brought up like that, to never rely on a man. To not be a housewife, not be a mother.

For me, I actually found that it would have been more frightening to take the conventional path.