Even as we enumerate their shortcomings, the rigor of raising children ourselves makes clear to us our mothers' incredible strength. We fear both. If they are not strong, who will protect us? If they are not imperfect, how can we equal them?

But it's important, while we are supporting lessons in respecting others, to remember that many of our youngest kids need to learn to respect themselves. You learn your worth from the way you are treated.

If I get the forty additional years statisticians say are likely coming to me, I could fit in at least one, maybe two new lifetimes. Sad that only one of those lifetimes can include being the mother of young children.

The greatest public health threat for many American women is the men they live with.

I realized that, while I would never be my mother nor have her life, the lesson she had left me was that it was possible to love and care for a man and still have at your core a strength so great that you never even needed to put it on display.

America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security.

Ideas are only lethal if you suppress and don't discuss them. Ignorance is not bliss, it's stupid. Banning books shows you don't trust your kids to think and you don't trust yourself to be able to talk to them.

People always blame the girl; she should have said no. A monosyllable, but conventional wisdom has always been that boys can't manage it.

After all those years as a woman hearing 'not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,' almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, 'I'm enough.'

There is little premium in poetry in a world that thinks of Pound and Whitman as a weight and a sampler, not an Ezra, a Walt, a thing of beauty, a joy forever.

I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

I always feel like a vague failure in L.A. - it always makes me feel like I should somehow be different than I am. And I don't know why.

I wouldn't call myself 'into the DJ scene.' I have friends who are DJs, like James Murphy. I was really into the DJ scene at his wedding. But generally, I'm not at the clubs. I've never been to a rave.

I'm really interested in trying to tell stories about women that don't involve romantic components. That's so much a part of the way we feel about female characters and their needs that it feels like it's built in - but I'd like to find a way that it's not. There are so many more stories than that.

There are a lot of love stories in 'Maggie's Plan,' but the deepest, truly romantic one is between Maggie and her daughter.

I'm, like, the only actor in New York who's never, ever been on any 'Law & Order.' And I've auditioned for so many. The sad thing is I love 'Law & Order.' I'm really obsessed with it. And they always said to me, 'You seem like you're making fun of the material.'

I have very intense feelings of joy or sadness. I used to not like that so much because I was worried it was girly, and I wanted to be more stoic. I think this happens a lot. When you're 16, there are qualities you wish you didn't have, and then when you're 30, you're like, 'Thank God I have that; otherwise, I'd be living less vividly.'

I thought movies were handed down by God. I knew that theater was made by people because I saw the people in front of me, but movies seemed like they were delivered, wholly made, from Zeus's head or something.

Courage doesn't grow overnight. It can be a long process.

I've had great success and I've had catastrophic failure. It's really how you handle the rough stuff that defines you, I think.

Young boys must be taught to play football without leading with or lowering their heads. Young players must be drilled over and over and over with Heads Up Football skills until that skill set becomes muscle memory and second nature.

I'm a huge sports fan. I love the psychology of athletes and the culture of athletics. I'm constantly drawn to those kinds of stories.

I think if you just eat healthy, you're active, and you don't beat yourself up, you're setting yourself up to win rather than setting yourself up for failure.

I don't want a huge wedding. I don't want it to be some huge spectacle.

I'm very open to dating and finding a guy.

I hope that I'll be hot for a long time so I can make a lot of money, I can retire early, and just travel. Hopefully that will happen.

I live in Chicago, but my work is always in New York or L.A., so I always have to travel for my job.

I have such a great relationship with my mom that I'm so excited to, hopefully, have that same relationship with my daughter.

I think the hardest part of being a working mom is that I miss my kids a lot.

I would never put my close friends or a real relationship on a show.

People don't know the real me. The hard times I went through are what led me to my life now. I was a mess as a teen! I was kind of wild and really unhappy.

I really believe that my family's infrequency of getting sick is due to our diet.

Actually, if I don't eat healthy food I don't feel good. For me, I crave healthy food.

I've been through a lot in my career, and the failure that I've gone through makes me really appreciate the moments of success much more.

I wouldn't want to disappoint my family, my friends, my fans.

Time flies really quickly. It feels like only a few months ago that I was traded over here and started my career as a Cub in 2013.

It's something that is very comforting. Just the process of them moving throughout their stages of early childhood. Learning to walk, learning to talk. Reaching out for you for the first hug, telling you they love you.

There's food and supplements that you can take legally that will better your body and help you stay healthy. Shortcuts are something that's always been around all sports, but as a union, we're trying to do the best we can to weed those guys out of the game.

When I was growing up, Brandy was TV star, reality star, a pop star, a Cover girl, Grammy winner, had her own Brandy doll, and was the first African American to play Disney princess Cinderella. Most importantly, she is a survivor. Many only judge and remember a person's most recent failure.

Falling in love was the easy part; planning a wedding - yikes!

When I got married in 1991, I had never been to a wedding, so I didn't know that my wedding was tacky. I didn't know that I was getting married in a quinceanera dress, because there was nobody there to cry over me and tell me I look like a fool.

I do not have a bride gene. I haven't been planning a wedding since I was 3. I never put a sheet on my head and pretended that it was a veil.

I don't want to be Carrie Bradshaw. I don't want the wedding to be bigger than Big. I'm just grateful to know that the first time I fell in love wasn't the last time.

Although my marriage left me with three beautiful children, it also left me with a healthy dose of self-doubt, low self-esteem, and an extreme desire to be loved again. I was operating on empty, expecting to be paid in full.

As women, we often think we have to be all things to all people, all at the same time. As a wife, mother, actress and businesswoman, I definitely feel the pressure to perform well in all areas.

I've known for quite a while that I was a funny girl.

There's nothing wrong with having a collection, but it becomes a problem when it overwhelms your space. When you're not displaying it properly, you're not enjoying it and it turns into clutter.

As a little girl, my destiny was stamped onto the canvas of my imagination at 5 years old. I was watching soaps with my grandmother... The most gorgeous black women I had ever seen in my life came out, and I knew that that is what I wanted to do - be fabulous and black and on TV.

Even people who despise ego and aspire to humility, who plan to be humble once they are successful, are worried that actually enacting those beliefs would sentence them to a life of obscurity or weakness or failure.

Ego is certainly there in many of the greatest and most dizzying tales of success - but it's there in some of the greatest stories of failure and self-implosion as well.