Mika Brzezinski Quotes

Growing up, I naturally embraced who I was, but I was always battling with myself. So I spent half my time being proud of being a woman and the other half completely hating it.

On the one hand, the idea of marriage and the sort of traditional family life repulses me. But on the other hand, I long for it, you know what I mean? I'm constantly in conflict with things. And it is because of my past and my upbringing and the journey that I've been on.

I had a beautiful mother and a famous father, and I didn't know where I fit in.

Thinking back to those earlier days, I felt I was weak when I wasn't making movies, and then when I was, I thought I was weak as a family member.

More and more couples are having this negotiation or discussion, but I'm still amazed at the number who aren't and where the cultural norm sort of kicks in and they just assume that mom's got to be the one who stays home, not dad.

I thought it was something peculiar to me. I thought I was abnormal.

There is a major part of who I am that does not feel like the alpha male.

My family didn't have a lot of money, so I worked my heart out to get my degrees. But the minute I graduated, suddenly everyone was asking me, 'Well, when are you going to get married and start having kids?' And the truth is I had no idea how I would balance the expected role of wife and mother with a challenging career.

Wherever I went, I became a son-in-law. It was a terrible phase for me. I had to work double hard to get back my identity. Whenever I gave an interview, the first question would invariably be, 'What is it like to be his son-in-law?' Now that question comes somewhere in the middle of the interview. Hopefully, soon, it won't be asked at all.

I was never good at being a boy, but I was always a good student.

Me feeling ambiguous about my gender identity has been a lifelong feeling, certainly.

The "female culture" has shifted more rapidly than the "male culture"; the image of the go-get 'em woman has yet to be fully matched by the image of the let's take-care-of-the-kids- together man. More important, over the last thirty years, men's underlying feelings about taking responsibility at home have changed much less than women's feelings have changed about forging some kind of identity at work.

When a man is forced into early retirement, he is often being 'given up for a younger man.' Being forced into early retirement can be to a man what being 'given up for a younger woman' is for a woman... Why do many men get more upset by retirement than women do from the empty nest when their children leave home? When females retire from children, they can try a career; when a man retires from a career, his children are gone.

I just feel like sometimes I'm a force to be dealt with. My talents are sometimes overused and also sometimes underused. It's not easy being me.

Whether at work, at home or in public, we have been trained to believe that who we are at the core of our being is often unacceptable. As a result, we work diligently to live up to - and sometimes down to - what others have made us out to be, whether or not it is an accurate reflection of who we are.

Success is hard in general for most women. We now have such busy lives, and we're told we can do everything - you know, we can have the relationship and the marriage and the kids and the career.

I was very strongly influenced by women's magazines and I really believed tha a woman could not be married and raise a family and have a successful career all at the same time.

I've had the longest mid-life crisis ever.

My parents were liberal intellectuals but even they expected me to stay at home and look after my younger siblings and do the housework.

My whole life, I've felt like I didn't quite measure up.

I have never met a woman who works who doesn't feel guilty. I mean we all deny it like crazy but deep down there is always that voice saying you should be at home.

Now, being a girl, I was ashamed of my body and my lack of strength. So I tried to be a man. I shot, rode, jumped, and took part in all the fights of the boys.

Earlier in my career, I was really tight, really together, and knew who I was and I was confident. I kind of feel in between now.

My dad was a very conservative Republican businessman, so obviously I considered it a problem when I realized I was a lesbian.

Throughout my life, I have grappled with my own identity, who I am. As a young child, I often felt ambivalent about myself, in fact, confused.