Melinda Quotes

I have survived. I am here. Confused, screwed up, but here. So, how can I find my way? Is there a chain saw of the soul, an ax I can take to my memories or fears?

Jack, there are only two of us here. One of us is going to push him out, one of us is going to catch him. Which job do you want?” (Melinda talking to her husband)

It's the mark of a backward society - or a society moving backward - when decisions are made for women by men.

Every society says its outsiders are the problem. But the outsiders are not the problem; the urge to create outsiders is the problem. Overcoming that urge is our greatest challenge and our greatest promise. It will take courage and insight, because the people we push to the margins are the ones who trigger in us the feelings we're afraid of.

If you want to lift up humanity, empower women. It is the most comprehensive, pervasive, high-leverage investment you can make in human beings.

Being a feminist means believing that every woman should be able to use her voice and pursue her potential, and that women and men should all work together to take down the barriers and end the biases that still hold women back.

If you don’t set your own agenda, somebody else will.” If I didn’t fill my schedule with things I felt were important, other people would fill my schedule with things they felt were important.

That is why we women have to lift each other up—not to replace men at the top of the hierarchy, but to become partners with men in ending hierarchy.

Poverty is not being able to protect your family. Poverty is not being able to save your children when mothers with more money could. And because the strongest instinct of a mother is to protect her children, poverty is the most disempowering force on earth.

As women gain rights, families flourish, and so do societies. That connection is built on a simple truth: Whenever you include a group that's been excluded, you benefit everyone. And when you're working globally to include women and girls, who are half of every population, you're working to benefit all members of every community. Gender equity lifts everyone. Women's rights and society's health and wealth rise together.

How could there be different Gods, Lief?" "I don't believe there are any at all," he says quietly. "But I believe there are men and women whose lives are made easier by believing someone is watching over them.

I am the perfect weapon, I can kill with a single touch.

Forget all the rules. Forget about being published. Write for yourself and celebrate writing.

How can you fall in love at first sight when you can't even see?

It may be a lifetime before I see you again on the far side of time. Wait for me. Look for me. Please don't forget me, Melinda Skye because one day I will come to you. I will come.

When people can’t agree, it’s often because there is no empathy, no sense of shared experience. If you feel what others feel, you’re more likely to see what they see. Then you can understand one another. Then you can move to the honest and respectful exchange of ideas that is the mark of a successful partnership. That’s the source of progress.

If I come to you, I want it to be because I am choosing you, for no reason other than that. I don't want for to ever doubt it.

What extreme poverty really means is that no matter how hard you work, you’re trapped. You can’t get out. Your efforts barely matter. You’ve been left behind by those who could life you up.

…contraceptives are the greatest life-saving, poverty-ending, women-empowering innovation ever created.

Shaming women for their sexuality is a standard tactic for drowning out the voices of women who want to decide whether and when to have children.

So here’s the question,” Melinda led in. “Who’s Tall, Dark and Smoldering?

When women can decide whether and when to have children, it saves lives, promotes health, expands education, and creates prosperity—no matter what country in the world you’re talking about.

Wisdom isn’t about accumulating more facts; it’s about understanding big truths in a deeper way. Year by year, with the support and insights of friends and partners and people who have gone before me, I see more clearly that the primary causes of poverty and illness are the cultural, financial, and legal restrictions that block what women can do—and think they can do—for themselves and their children.

In fact, no country in the last fifty years has emerged from poverty without expanding access to contraceptives.

What I realized much later, paradoxically, is that by trying to fit in, I was strengthening the culture that made me feel like I didn’t fit in.

The parents are making threatening noises, turning dinner into performance art, with dad doing his Arnold Schwarzenegger imitation and mom playing Glenn Close in one of her psycho roles. I am the Victim. Mom: [creepy smile] “Thought you could put one over us, did you, Melinda? Big high school students now, don’t need to show your homework to your parents, don’t need to show any failing test grades?” Dad: [bangs table, silverware jumps] “Cut the crap. She knows what’s up. The interim reports came today. Listen to me, young lady. I’m only going to say this to you once. You get those grades up or your name is mud. Hear me? Get them up!” [Attacks baked potato.]

Better to have to retrace your steps and then move forward than never to move forward at all.

Disrespect for women grows when religions are dominated by men. … I believe without question that the disrespect for women embodied male-dominated religion is a factor in laws and customs that keep women down.

If you invest in a girl or a woman, you’re investing in everyone else.

To bring about a revolution of the heart, you have to let your heart break. Letting your heart break means sinking into the pain that’s underneath the anger.... If you don’t accept the suffering, hurt can turn to hatred.

Fortune favors the bold." I smile weakly. "So does death," she counters immediately. "The craven tend to live much longer than the heroic.

It is especially galling that some of the people who want to cut funding for contraceptives cite morality. In my view, there is no morality without empathy, and there is certainly no empathy in this policy. Morality is loving your neighbor as yourself, which comes from seeing your neighbor as yourself, which means trying to ease your neighbor’s burdens—not add to them.

A person can say a lot without speaking.

never sacrificing your self-respect. That is power.

The truth is only relevant if you can prove it.” And wasn’t that a sad fact of life.

I have gotten one question repeatedly from young men. These are guys who liked the book, but they are honestly confused. They ask me why Melinda was so upset about being raped.

Twenty minutes later, I walk out of Melinda's hotel with a plate of finger sandwiches, a bag of prostitute clothes, and a weird wedge on my head that makes me look like you could tip me upside down and fill it with cream of mushroom. I need another donut.

We all want to have something to offer. This is how we belong. It’s how we feel included. So if we want to include everyone, then we have to help everyone develop their talents and use their gifts for the good of the community. That’s what inclusion means—everyone is a contributor. And if they need help to become a contributor, then we should help them, because they are full members in a community that supports everyone.

Somehow she could always think better when all her hair was out of her face. Stupid, but true.

That’s the trouble with knowing things: you can’t un-know them. Once you let yourself look at them, or say them aloud, they become real.

Please don't miss me too much. Please don't be too sad. Find someone else to love, because you have much love to give and it's a gift that shouldn't be wasted. You , Jesse, were the rose that made my life sweet.I will wait for you in heaven.

Self-hatred is the best vehicle for making people do as they’re told because they are hungry to get approval.

We grew up together but we won't grow old together.

Because when you lift up women, you lift up humanity.

Cancer isn't the worst thing that can happen to a person. And neither is dying young. Taking life for granted, living badly-- these things seem far worse to me. In many ways- ways that count- I'm the luckiest girl in the world.

Their cup is not empty; you can’t just pour your ideas into it. Their cup is already full, so you have to understand what is in their cup.” If you don’t understand the meaning and beliefs behind a community’s practices, you won’t present your idea in the context of their values and concerns, and people won’t hear you.

Were you disappointed?” She takes a deep breath, looking down at her hands. “My heart was. My head wasn’t. Most days I’m at war with myself. My head wins, usually. And for that I’m glad.

We actually do have a lot of guns. There's a lot of hunting in Norway. But there's almost no gun violence." "Why do you think that is?" "On a fundamental level," says Sigrid, "I think it's because we don't want to shoot each other." "That could be our problem right there," says Melinda

I am not cunning...I'm good at seeing around obstacles is all.

... but for now it's too great a pleasure to stay in my own cottage, with my own books, and do exactly what I want to do.

And I said, ‘I’m thinkin’ I’ve wasted too much time thinkin’, is what I’m thinkin'.

Submission doesn't mean weakness; it means exploring your wants and desires and being strong enough to give control of yourself to someone else.

That's the problem with fairy tales, they change with the telling.

The value of identity is that it so often comes with purpose.

sometimes all that’s needed to lift women up is to stop pulling them down.

Opportunities have to be equal before you can know if abilities are equal. And opportunities for women have never been equal.

People can be equal but still be isolated—not feeling the bonds that tie them together. Equality without connection misses the whole point.

Today in the US, we’re sending our daughters into a workplace that was designed for our dads—set up on the assumption that employees had partners who would stay home to do the unpaid work...

In the stories of old, a hero is the one who sweeps in with a drawn sword and noble face, to kill the Dragon and free the princess. In the stories of old it never seems to dawn on the princess that she should be careful not to put herself at mercy of those who would do her ill in the first place. I don't live in the stories of old.

Maria loved the way she and Liz could just sit in the same room together, each doing their own thing, sometimes talking, sometimes not. You had to be really good friends with someone before it felt this comfortable to basically ignore them for long stretches of time.

Always dream big and dare to believe!

Jokes are many things. 'Funny' is only one of them.

I’ve learned that being alone and being lonely are not the same thing. Once I was surrounded by people and lonely for it, but now I’m alone and I’ve never been so content.

Death was final. There was no time for a final kiss or caress, to apologize for a harsh word or argument. The world imploded with no warning.

Benvolio had never been in love, and he was certain that he was not now. When he compared the turmoil Rosaline provoked in him to Romeo’s sighing, poetical ardor, he found they had little in common. He felt no urge to write sonnets, nor to moan her name and weep. That was love. This was—irritating. No

Contraceptives save the lives of mothers and newborns. Contraceptives also reduce abortion. As a result of contraceptive use, there were 26 million fewer unsafe abortions in the world’s poorest countries in just one year, according to the most recent data.

Being yourself sounds like a saccharine prescription for how to make it in an aggressive culture. But it’s not as sweet as it sounds. It means not acting in a way that’s false just to fit in. It’s expressing your talents, values, and opinions in your style, defending your rights, and never sacrificing your self-respect. That is power.

We always protect our heads, our faces,' he commented as he followed a half-step behind and to her left. It's pure instinct; to shield the eyes. The irony is that the blind have no eyes to protect, and suffer most of their injuries on their legs. But instinct can be blind, too.

The world is full of what seem like intractable problems. Often we let that paralyze us. Instead, let is spur you to action. There are some people in the world that we can't help, but there are so many more that we can. So when you see a mother and her children suffering in another part of the world, don't look away. Look right at them. Let them break your heart, then let your empathy and your talents help you make a difference in the lives of others. Whether you volunteer every week or just a few times a year, your time and unique skills are invaluable.

Overcoming the need to create outsiders is our greatest challenge as human beings.

Gender bias does worldwide damage. It’s a cause of low productivity on farms. It’s a source of poverty and disease. It’s at the core of social customs that keep women down.

It's difficult to grieve for an idea.

...the Colonel hadn't raised a damsel in distress. He'd raised a damsel who caused distress.

Why do I matter to you?” I say, my voice breaking. “You don’t.” “Then why are you doing this?” “Because I can. Because I slept for five hundred years and now I want some sport.

Marriage isn’t about romance. It’s about commitment through the drudgery of everyday life, when the moonlight and roses have turned to sick children and medical bills.

I can see the things he doesn’t say, because they’re written all over him.

If there is any meaning in life greater than connecting with other human beings, I haven’t found it.

The goal is for everyone to be connected. The goal is for everyone to belong. The goal is for everyone to be loved. Love is what lifts us up.

The rules that shape the lives of employees in the workplace today often don’t honor the lives of employees outside the workplace. That can make the workplace a hostile place—because it pits your work against your family in a contest one side has to lose.

I believe that all lives have equal value. That all men and women are created equal. That everyone belongs. That everyone has rights, and everyone has the right to flourish. I believe that when people who are bound by the rules have no role in shaping the rules, moral blind spots become law, and the powerless bear the burden. … I believe that entrenched social norms that shift society’s benefits to the powerful and its burdens to the powerless not only hurt the people pushed out but also always hurt the whole.

The United States is one of only eight countries in the world that do not provide paid maternity leave…This is startling evidence that the United States is far behind the rest of the world in honoring the needs of families.

And most of us fall into one of the same three groups: the people who try to create outsiders, the people who are made to feel like outsiders, and the people who stand by and don’t stop it.

If I ever see myself as separate or superior, if I try to lift myself up by pulling down others, if I believe people are on a journey I have completed, doing personal work I have mastered, attempting tasks I've accomplished--if I have any feeling that I am above them instead of trying to rise with them, then I have isolated myself from them.

An abusive culture, to me, is any culture that needs to single out and exclude a group. It’s always a less productive culture because the organization’s energy is diverted from lifting people up to keeping people down. It’s like an autoimmune disease where the body sees its own organs as threats and begins attacking them. One of the most common signs of an abusive culture is the false hierarchy that puts women below men.

Here I made this for you. 'Twas finished weeks ago. I should have known better than to expect your attentions when you had no further need of me." She thrust a scrap of cloth at him. "Here." He took it. It was a handkerchief, embroidered with the Montague crest. "Thanks." "You're welcome. Go choke on it.

It’s the mark of a backward society—or a society moving backward—when decisions are made for women by men. That’s what’s happening right now in the US.

Marriage is a three ring circus: engagement ring, wedding ring and suffering. ~  Unknown

Faith in action to me means going to the margins of society, seeking out those who are isolated, and bringing them back in. I was putting my faith into action when I went into the field and met the women who asked me about contraceptives. So, yes, there is a Church teaching about contraceptives—but there is another Church teaching, which is love of neighbor. When a woman who wants her children to thrive asks me for contraceptives, her plea puts these two Church teachings into conflict, and my conscience tells me to support the woman’s desire to keep her children alive. To me, that aligns with Christ’s teaching to love my neighbor.

The most radical approach to resistance is acceptance--and acceptance does not mean accepting the world as it is. It means accepting our pain as it is. If we refuse to accept our pain, then we're just trying to make ourselves feel better--and when our hidden motive is to make ourselves to feel better, there is no limit to the damage we can do in the name of justice.

I’ve never held the view that women are better than men, or that the best way to improve the world is for women to gain more power than men. I think male dominance is harmful to society because any dominance is harmful: It means society is governed by a false hierarchy where power and opportunity are awarded according to gender, age, wealth, and privilege—not according to skill, effort, talent, or accomplishments. When a culture of dominance is broken, it activates power in all of us. So the goal for me is not the rise of women and the fall of man. It is the rise of both women and men from a struggle for dominance to a state of partnership. If the goal is partnership between women and men, why do I put so much emphasis on women’s empowerment and women’s groups? My answer is that we draw strength from each other, and we often have to convince ourselves that we deserve an equal partnership before we get one.

You seem not like a lady give much to swooning, anyway, from what I've seen," he said. "Not much, sir. Swooning stains one's gown with earth." "But not if one is there to catch you, lady." "'Tis true. But men can't be relied upon to follow me about with outstretched arms, and so I think it best to stay upright.

Isabel wondered if there would ever be a time when she could stop being careful. If there would ever be a time when she could use other kinds of power. She missed it. It felt like part of her had been injected with novocaine and was totally numb. Almost dead" (p.35).

Anyone can be made to feel like an outsider. It’s up to the people who have the power to exclude. Often it’s on the basis of race. Depending on a culture’s fears and biases, Jews can be treated as outsiders. Muslims can be treated as outsiders. Christians can be treated as outsiders. The poor are always outsiders. The sick are often outsiders. People with disabilities can be treated as outsiders. Members of the LGBTQ community can be treated as outsiders. Immigrants are almost always outsiders. And in most every society, women can be made to feel like outsiders—even in their own homes. Overcoming the need to create outsiders is our greatest challenge as human beings. It is the key to ending deep inequality. We stigmatize and send to the margins people who trigger in us the feelings we want to avoid. This is why there are so many old and weak and sick and poor people on the margins of society. We tend to push out the people who have qualities we’re most afraid we will find in ourselves—and sometimes we falsely ascribe qualities we disown to certain groups, then push those groups out as a way of denying those traits in ourselves. This is what drives dominant groups to push different racial and religious groups to the margins. And we’re often not honest about what’s happening. If we’re on the inside and see someone on the outside, we often say to ourselves, “I’m not in that situation because I’m different. But that’s just pride talking. We could easily be that person. We have all things inside us. We just don’t like to confess what we have in common with outsiders because it’s too humbling. It suggests that maybe success and failure aren’t entirely fair. And if you know you got the better deal, then you have to be humble, and it hurts to give up your sense of superiority and say, “I’m no better than others.” So instead we invent excuses for our need to exclude. We say it’s about merit or tradition when it’s really just protecting our privilege and our pride.

Dot sat forward and tugged another handful of bracelets from the snarl. “Here’s something I believe.” She held up a green bracelet so that the sun shone clear through the colors on the beads. “I believe that when women like us meet, that our children in heaven also find their way to each other, on account of us all being in the same place and them watching over. So they’re all together—Stella your pair, Melinda’s, and mine. Right now, they’re up there, singing maybe, or playing Red Rover, and probably laughing at us sitting around trying to fix a mess we ourselves made.

I want them to see that in the universal human desire to be happy, to develop our gifts, to contribute to others, to love and be loved—we’re all the same. Nobody is any better than anybody else, and no one’s happiness or human dignity matters more than anyone else’s.

That is the secret of an empowering education: A girl learns she is not who she’s been told she is. She is the equal of anyone, and she has rights she needs to assert and defend. This is how the great movements of social change get traction: when outsiders reject the low self-image society has imposed on them and begin to author a self-image of their own.

Billy, I can’t even pick my nose without using a finger.” Sometimes my mouth should stop and consult my brain before it says anything. Billy got this wide-eyed look of admiration that belonged on a nine-year-old boy. It said, Wow, that was really gross, and, more important, How come I didn’t think of it? My mouth consulted my brain this time, and I asked, “I don’t suppose you could just forget I said that?” “No,” Billy said, in a tone that matched the admiration still in his eyes. “I don’t think I can. I’m going to have to tell that one to Robert.” “Melinda will kill you.

Lavender used to be my favorite color in the box of sixty-four crayons - you know, the one with the sharpener built into the side...It seemed like it could draw anything. It was the right color for everything. I drew lavender flowers and my father's lavender eyes, my mother's lavender smile. They were the same to me, mother, father, flowers. All good. All lavender. And I was lavender, too.

He pauses, swipes a matchstick on a column. It bursts into flame. “I tell you, you must take risks in my studio.” He finds a cigarette behind his ear and lights it. “I tell you not to be timid. I tell you to make the choices, make the mistakes, big, terrible, reckless mistakes, really screw it all up. I tell you it is the only way.” An affirmative murmur. “I say this, yes, but I still see so many of you afraid to cut in.” He begins to pace, slowly like a wolf, which is definitely his mirror animal. “I see what you are doing. When you leave yesterday, I go from work to work. You feel like Rambo maybe with the drills, the saws. You make lots of noise, lots of dust, but very few of you have found even this much”—he pinches two fingers together—“of your sculptures. Today this changes.” He walks over to a short blond-haired girl. “May I, Melinda?” “Please,

Anyone can be made to feel like an outsider. It’s up to the people who have the power to exclude. Often it’s on the basis of race. Depending on a culture’s fears and biases, Jews can be treated as outsiders. Muslims can be treated as outsiders. Christians can be treated as outsiders. The poor are always outsiders. The sick are often outsiders. People with disabilities can be treated as outsiders. Members of the LGBTQ community can be treated as outsiders. Immigrants are almost always outsiders. And in most every society, women can be made to feel like outsiders—even in their own homes. Overcoming the need to create outsiders is our greatest challenge as human beings. It is the key to ending deep inequality. We stigmatize and send to the margins people who trigger in us the feelings we want to avoid. This is why there are so many old and weak and sick and poor people on the margins of society. We tend to push out the people who have qualities we’re most afraid we will find in ourselves—and sometimes we falsely ascribe qualities we disown to certain groups, then push those groups out as a way of denying those traits in ourselves. This is what drives dominant groups to push different racial and religious groups to the margins. And we’re often not honest about what’s happening. If we’re on the inside and see someone on the outside, we often say to ourselves, “I’m not in that situation because I’m different. But that’s just pride talking. We could easily be that person. We have all things inside us. We just don’t like to confess what we have in common with outsiders because it’s too humbling. It suggests that maybe success and failure aren’t entirely fair. And if you know you got the better deal, then you have to be humble, and it hurts to give up your sense of superiority and say, “I’m no better than others.” So instead we invent excuses for our need to exclude. We say it’s about merit or tradition when it’s really just protecting our privilege and our pride.