Rashida Jones

"I wasn’t really in the practice of having to prove myself to anybody…[But] it was good in a sense because with every step of alienation I realized that my identity is truly my own.”

Rashida Jones film/TV actress, comic book author, screenwriter

Helen Gurley Brown

“Beauty can't amuse you, but brainwork—reading, writing, thinking—can.”

Helen Gurley Brown businesswoman, author, publisher 

Saima Wahab

"Instead of being angry at their implications that I was a woman of low morals who could not be trusted with freedoms, I decided that I would make it one of my life’s goals … to show them that I was capable of more than they had ever allowed me to envision for my future…little did I know … I was embarking on a journey … so far removed from the fate any Pashtun woman is born into.”

Saima Wahab  

excerpt "In My Father's Country: An Afghan Woman Defies Her Fate"

born in Afghanistan; then a Pakistan refugee who moved to the US as a teenager;

one of the only Pashtun female translators in the world; returned to Afghanistan

several times to work as a cultural adviser with the U.S. Army. 

Molly Ivins

"The first rule of holes: when you're in one, stop digging."

Molly Ivins    

columnist, political commentator, humorist and author

Gracie Allen

"I stand before you tonight a simple, plain woman...which is not my fault, but the beautician can't take me till tomorrow."

Gracie Allen  zany radio and early TV comedienne