Fidel Castro had to sit there while he was given a speech on democracy, something the Cuban people have not been able to hear for 43 years.
My mother came from a very affluent background, very Westernized, while my father was more Eastern. So I've had a very good blend of the East and the West. I guess this has been extremely helpful in making my career and the way I function.
Some women work while they are pregnant, but not me. That was a choice I had made. That's when I took a break. Men can work at whatever stage they are; whether they turn daddy, they still have their own thing. But women can't afford that because by being mothers, they have to be there for their kids.
Women of child-bearing age steadily run out of eggs by the continuous process of cell death. While reading a copy of the 'Guardian' carefully from cover to cover, a normal woman will have lost on average two eggs - while, typically, a normal man will have made 70,000 new sperm.
I wanted to put all my family stories down for my girls, and I remember everything so vividly. I just wanted to put everything down while I still can remember it all.
I had an extremely boring time doing 20 to 30 trades a day while everyone was talking about baseball or basketball. So I stood there fantasizing about a device that could do the same thing I was doing.
I would encounter W. E. B. Du Bois and the term double consciousness. When I read it, I thought about sitting in my mother's employer's family room, watching my mother clean while I waited for her to finish so we could go home.
We love the sight of the brown and ruddy earth; it is the color of life, while a snow-covered plain is the face of death. Yet snow is but the mask of the life-giving rain; it, too, is the friend of man, the tender, sculpturesque, immaculate, warming, fertilizing snow.
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.
While I am reluctant to cite sexism as a political issue, sexism certainly can exist.
There's more student debt than credit card debt! Everywhere I go, I run into young people trying to build careers while they keep shelling out money on their education loans. If the economy is looking for a new generation of home-buyers, I can't imagine they'll get it from these folks.
Your self-esteem won't come from body parts. You need to step away from the mirror every once in a while, and look for another reflection, like the one in the eyes of the people who love you and admire you.
Even as a 10-year-old, I remember trying to explain to my mother and stepfather how upset and frustrated a messy room made me. But they just couldn't grasp it. They wanted me to be playing with baseballs and frogs while I wanted to be scouring garage sales.
It took me a while to find myself.
I'll never get another first premiere again, especially at Sundance. I've just been trying to fully engage myself in everything that's going on, and I hope to see other movies here while I'm here! I really want to!
People have to realize that just because you're a Christian, it doesn't mean that you're perfect, because every once in a while everyone stumbles.
'Religion,' I should note, has a disputed etymology in Latin: some say it's from 'relegere,' meaning 'to reread', while others say it's from religare, meaning 'to connect' or 'link.' Literature is life's fastener.
Every once in a while I go off to do a movie or a television series and I take my art with me. I can stay in character when I paint.
I have many times marveled at how I could feel so good about myself while eating peanuts in a middle seat on Southwest Airlines and yet feel so condescended to in first class on United.
I would say that while most Muslims take offense at the portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad in cartoons, they would never resort to violence. It is a minority of extremist Muslims who take such actions, and they do it for political and tactical reasons far beyond just being offended.
If you've tried everything possible to get an outcome, and it just hasn't worked out as planned, stop trying so hard. Relax. Maybe the timing's not right. Maybe it wasn't in your best interests. Maybe while one door seems to be closing, another is opening.
A lot of people cannot dance because they are inhibited. 'Oh, I can't dance' or 'I have two left feet' or maybe someone has commented on their dancing a while back. When you enjoy something, you might be doing the simplest of moves, but they still look so beautiful.
Most Americans don't shout their politics, much less blast it from their TVs while serving you fried pickles - that's the Left.
They go on about banning size zero, but I think Hollywood stars are the worst perpetrators. Most models are naturally long and gangly, while a lot of these young girls in Hollywood have gone on extreme diets. Their concave chests and bony arms are terrifying. It's scary to think that normal teenagers are tempted to copy them.
As entrepreneurs, we often get pressured into hiring an industry executive. While it's good to hire people with experience, it can also be a stumbling block because they think about the business the same way everyone else does.
It takes me a while to come out of myself and get to know people.
Free migration within Europe means that countries that have done a better job at reducing unemployment will predictably end up with more than their fair share of refugees. Workers in these countries bear the cost in depressed wages and higher unemployment, while employers benefit from cheaper labor.
With any luck, Heaven itself will resemble a vast used bookstore, with a really good cafe in one corner, serving dark beer and kielbasa to keep up one's strength while browsing, and all around will be the kind of angels usually found in Victoria's Secret catalogs.
I'm not big on reading business books. I get copies of all of them, because people want me to put a comment on the jacket. Every once in a while, I'll get interested and read one all the way through.
I don't actually have a one wellspring of inspiration. Though I'm most often inspired while reading - both fiction and nonfiction.
The young people I work with every day and serve the nation in the armed forces in general, and the Marine Corps in particular, have broken the mold and stepped out as men and women of character who are making their own way in life while protecting ours.
While apartheid was in operation, the set-up was a gift for writers if you were looking for a big theme.
As I started to think about how I can claim feminism while also acknowledging my humanity and my imperfections, 'bad feminism' simply seemed like the best answer.
I am grateful to my colleagues at Brandeis and to the unusual environment here that allows researchers to explore without boundaries while also engaging students in the process of discovery. This is a very special - perhaps unique - university.
While my friends were outside practising to be Tony Hawk or Michael Jordan, I was inside playing Mozart, increasingly disillusioned and bored.
While I was serving, I worked as an adventure training officer, teaching soldiers how to ski, canoe and climb.
