I'd like to see where boys and girls end up if they get equal encouragement - I think we might have some differences in how leadership is done.

I don't pretend there aren't biological differences, but I don't believe the desire for leadership is hardwired biology, not the desire to win or excel. I believe that it's socialization, that we're socializing our daughters to nurture and our boys to lead.

If more women are in leadership roles, we'll stop assuming they shouldn't be.

I'm a pragmatist. I think, as a woman, you have to be more careful. You have to be more communal, you have to say yes to more things than men, you have to worry about things that men don't have to worry about. But once we get enough women into leadership, we can break stereotypes down. If you lead, you get to decide.

When I went to college, as much as my parents emphasized academic achievement, they emphasized marriage even more. They told me that the most eligible women marry young to get a 'good man' before they are all taken.

For any of us in this room today, let's start out by admitting we're lucky. We don't live in the world our mothers lived in, our grandmothers lived in, where career choices for women were so limited.

Women don't take enough risks. Men are just 'foot on the gas pedal.' We're not going to close the achievement gap until we close the ambition gap.

The No. 1 impediment to women succeeding in the workforce is now in the home.

When my mother took her turn to sit in a gown at her graduation, she thought she only had two career options: nursing and teaching. She raised me and my sister to believe that we could do anything, and we believed her.

It's more pressure on women to - if they marry or partner with someone, to partner with the right person. Because you cannot have a full career and a full life at home with your children if you are also doing all of the housework and child care.

I would love to meet J.K. Rowling and tell her how much I admire her writing and am amazed by her imagination. I read every 'Harry Potter' book as it came out and looked forward to each new one. I am rereading them now with my kids and enjoying them every bit as much. She made me look at jelly beans in a whole new way.

I do think, in time, people will have, sort of, relationships with certain kinds of robots - not every robot, but certain kinds of robots - where they might feel that it is a sort of friendship, but it's going to be of a robot-human kind.

We have a lot of suspicion of robots in the West. But if you look cross-culturally, that isn't true. In Japan, in their science fiction, robots are seen as good. They have Astro Boy, this character they've fallen in love with and he's fundamentally good, always there to help people.

I was raised on technology. I grew up in Livermore, California, a town of physicists and cowboys. My parents worked at the government laboratories there. So technology was very normal for me.

Through our evolution, we're so specialized for social interaction. So, if you can really design robots that can interact with people, in this very natural, interpersonal way, I think that would be great. You wouldn't have to have people read manuals, in order to operate them.

There are pros and cons of experience. A con is that you can't look at the business with a fresh pair of eyes and as objectively as if you were a new CEO. Fire yourself on a Friday night and come in on Monday morning as if a search firm put you there as a turn-around leader. Can you be objective and make the bold change?

Women like myself, CEOs, can pave the way for more women to get to the top.

As I grow older, I think friendship between women is a thing to cherish.

When employees join executives in truly owning the responsibility for business success, an exciting new sense of teamwork takes hold.

The more a business is able to develop and articulate a core purpose and engage with millennials, who equate purpose with business excellence, the greater chances for long-term success.

What I would say is that if someone faces discrimination, they should never back down. They should be self-confident and educate others not to have such an attitude.

Leadership changes, and evolving marketplace conditions can significantly impact business strategy.

Exceptional firms have always been good at aligning their mission or purpose with their execution and, as a result, have enjoyed category leadership in sales and profits.

All the good work in the world will not compensate for the damage that a single facet of the business, or a rogue individual, can do. Insider trading, environmental damage, human-rights violations, and opportunistic practices erode trust and result in net negative impact.

What the canons of beauty transmit is an idea of taking care of yourself. Eating well, living healthily, doing sports. It's a way to highlight the natural beauty in each of us. The natural body that all of us are born with.

Because my friends and family are real people, and they wear all sizes, I couldn't imagine designing something that my loved ones could not wear.

My definition of beauty is happiness. I believe that when you are happy, it shines through and makes you a more attractive and beautiful person!

You keep dreaming big, never put the limit on your dreams, and believe that everything can come true.

I love the sunrise, as I am definitely a morning person! It's a great time to get up and have a coffee in the garden by myself before everybody wakes up.

With modeling, I'm thankful to have so many work options. But you do have to be able to say no. In reality, everything would be yes because every gig pays more than any normal job. But you still have to keep your priorities straight in life. And my priorities are my girls.

Mary Lincoln provided Elizabeth Keckley with opportunities for social and economic advancement she probably had never imagined during her years as a slave, while Elizabeth offered Mary the loyal, steadfast friendship she craved but had always found so elusive.

When I was working on my first novel, 'The Quilter's Apprentice,' I knew I wanted to write about friendship, especially women's friendship and how women use friendship to sustain themselves and nurture each other.

Anyone who works on a quilt, who devotes her time, energy, creativity, and passion to that art, learns to value the work of her hands. And as any quilter will tell you, a quilter's quilting friends are some of the dearest, most generous, and most supportive people she knows.

Elizabeth Keckley was a woman of remarkable strength, courage, perseverance, and dignity. She was exceptionally talented, but also very diligent and ambitious, and together those qualities enabled her to deliver herself from slavery and become a successful businesswoman.

Profitability is coming from productivity, efficiency, management, austerity, and the way to manage the business.

At 25, I made many companies. I was thinking more like a businessman or entrepreneur than a CEO. I created many companies, small companies, medium companies. I tried to be involved in many kinds of activities, in finance, in real estate, in mining.

I've always said that the better off you are, the more responsibility you have for helping others. Just as I think it's important to run companies well, with a close eye to the bottom line, I think you have to use your entrepreneurial experience to make corporate philanthropy effective.

Our philosophy is you need to give nonprofit money for health, nutrition, education, culture, and sports.

A friendship can weather most things and thrive in thin soil; but it needs a little mulch of letters and phone calls and small, silly presents every so often - just to save it from drying out completely.

A horse is the projection of peoples' dreams about themselves - strong, powerful, beautiful - and it has the capability of giving us escape from our mundane existence.

For every person who has ever lived there has come, at last, a spring he will never see. Glory then in the springs that are yours.

Kittens are wide-eyed, soft and sweet. With needles in their jaws and feet.

The courage of very ordinary people is all that stands between us and the dark.

I got to sing with Placido Domingo... I got to sing with Aaron Neville, who is one of my favorites. Got to sing with Brian Wilson, one of the great high tenors. And Ricky Skaggs, a bluegrass tenor. I'm also proud of my musical friendship with Emmylou Harris.

I wanted to sing when I was little. That's what I liked doing. It didn't occur to me that you became famous or anything like that.

I didn't think I was a famous singer. I didn't think I was a star or that I could make the waters part - just that singing was what I was going to do.

I admire people's marriages, and I think it's a wonderful thing to have, but I don't think it's the only way to live. I think there are many ways to live and many ways to establish intimate support in your life that can be from family or friends or great roommates that you like.

There should not be a question of legal or illegal immigration. People came and immigrated to this country from the time of the Indians. No one's illegal. They should just be able to come.

I'll occasionally go and do an honor like the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund because it raises money for a very worthy organization.

In the United States, we spend millions of dollars on sports because it promotes teamwork, discipline, and the experience of learning to make great progress in small increments. Learning to play music does all this and more.