Elizabeth Gilbert Quotes

Suddenly women's lib had made me feel my life had been wasted.

I grew up in a family with two very strong women, my mother and my older sister, and they were big influences on my life. I've spent a life loving women, and studying them as much as I can, or am allowed to.

I have a lot of feminist idols. My favorite thing about growing up in Arkansas - well, not favorite but something I've always felt grateful for - was that I really had to dig for what I could. There was no Internet. There wasn't tons of feminist literature floating around.

I think we're socialized out of being women, and then we have to find our way back to it. That's hard to do.

The six people who had the biggest impact on my life were all women. Had I been sexist, my life would have been far less fulfilling.

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.

Not sure of my place in the world (still up for debate) and not sure what I wanted to do with my life (not really up for debate).

Merely external emancipation has made of the modern woman an artificial being. Now, woman is confronted with the necessity of emancipating herself from emancipation, if she really desires to be free.

The cardinal rule for any performer is that they should know themselves before they enter the spotlight, and I didn't. I was just Neil and I did what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to get married, so I got married. I was supposed to get a job, so I looked for work.

You know, I'm still deciding what I'm going to be when I grow up.

It is therapeutic for me to act, to be able to slip into somebody else's skin, and know it's not you, but know that you bring a lot of yourself to it. At times in my life it's provided me with a lot of confusion. It's also provided me with a lot of discovery.

So I constantly play women who are damaged and out of touch, who are seeking without knowing, or knowing without the skills to transform their lives. But then, that's really the fate of many women today.

I think just because you're a mom, it doesn't negate - if anything, you're probably more enhanced - that you're a woman trying to find your place in the world.

I think it was really entering my 30s that I began to embrace feminism and call myself a feminist.

I got a lot of paradoxes in my life. I guess I'm a real confused person, but there are some focused parts to my life now, and I'm slowly trying to put all the pieces back together.

Mary Tyler Moore was a working woman whose story lines were not always about dating and men. They were about work friendships and relationships, which is what I feel my adult life has mostly been about.

I think I went through my phase of feeling sort of invisible when I left my small hometown in Canada and moved to the big city of Vancouver. I kind of had to decide right there in that moment what I was going to do with the rest of my life and make a thousand decisions after finishing high school. Fortunately, I chose acting.

I spent the first 25 years of my life not knowing what I wanted to do.

If I had my life to live over, I would want to be a man.

I've had times in my life when I really haven't been able to figure myself out.

I'm totally confused about what I'm going to do with my life.

Women, we are so strong! It took me so long to figure that out, but I realized just how strong a woman is.

I really want to speak for young women, especially because I feel like we're constantly brainwashed in everyday life.

Growing up, you have all these ideas, and then you're confronted and faced with the real world for the first time. And you have to think of what you want your life to be.

I hope Indian parents will allow girls to choose their own destiny.