Ginni Rometty Quotes

Empowering girls is extremely important to me because, growing up, I needed those empowering women to show me the way. When my parents divorced when I was 11, my mom was a force to be reckoned with. She showed me how to be self-sufficient and independent.

My mother was determined to make us independent. When I was four years old, she stopped the car a few miles from our house and made me find my own way home across the fields. I got hopelessly lost.

I hope my books empower kids, and that they learn how to work out their problems themselves.

I dropped out of NYU, moved out of my parent's house, got my own place, and survived on my own. I made music and worked my way from the bottom up.

Hero shows you how to solve the problem - yourself.

The truth is that at age 19, I was a teenage mother living alone with my daughter in a trailer and struggling to keep us afloat on my way to a divorce. And I knew then that I was going to have to work my way up and out of that life if I was going to give my daughter a better life and a better future, and that's what I've done.

Women call me all the time and tell me, 'You inspired me to get out of a bad situation,' or 'You inspired me to take the reigns for myself and go and do this.' I try to tell people to live their best life, and do what you know you need to do for yourself and your family. You need to be supported.

When my trust fund ran out, I panicked. I have a lot of admiration for the kids who come to the big city with nothing and make it.

We can and we will solve our problems for ourselves. We know how. We can, and we will.

When I was four, my mother insisted I get out of the car and find my own way home. Although I got lost, I did find my way home. It taught me the value of independence at an early age.

I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. But I made it!

I take pleasure in discovering resourcefulness inside me.

When it came to my childhood - growing up in a single-parent home, often struggling financially - my mother definitely instilled in me and my siblings this strength, this will, to just continue to survive and succeed.

The girls in my books are out solving their own problems.

I feel like I'm back in business now, and I'm managing pretty well as a single mum. I've proved to myself I can do it. You come out the other end and think, 'Wow, I'm pretty good at this!'

The determination to outwit one's situation means that one has no models, only object lessons.

When Marcus Garvey spoke about self-reliance, he wasn't only talking about people of colour. It's like self-reliance in general, for anyone. Just keep moving and moving within the right direction, and everything will be all right.

Raising myself and caring for my brothers and sisters allowed me the benefit of a lot of information that I wouldn't have otherwise gotten. I had to be frugal, thoughtful, resourceful. I didn't have anyone to tell me, 'You can't.'

I was once a single mother, with very few resources, so I have a special place in my heart for women in difficult situations.

Kenya, being a third world country, from a young age your eyes are open to the real world. I'd like to think growing up there taught me to stand on my own two feet, make my own decisions about what I wanted to be.

By the age of 9 or 10, I knew that I had to cut my own cloth and make my own way.

I grew up with just my mom. She and I were like best friends. She's a very independent woman and I admire that about her. In my life, I've tried to be like that. To be okay with being on my own and being independent.

Scouting teaches a boy to take care of himself and stand on his own two feet.

People couldn't understand why my mama would have this blind kid out doing things like cutting wood for the fire. But her thing was: He may be blind, but he ain't stupid.

As far as I was concerned, the Depression was an ill wind that blew some good. If it hadn't occurred, my parents would have given me my college education. As it was, I had to scrabble for it.