Women Born In The 1940s

"We must really give special attention to our women athletes, including our Para athletes. And not just the athletes and their coaches but those who help build and promote women sports. These awards are for those who provide inspiration for all women in sports."

"No amount of past oppression can justify women's oppression of the most vulnerable among us."

"At the heart of her doubts about secular liberalism (and what she described as "radical, upscale feminism") was its embrace of abortion and its (continuing) dalliance with euthanasia. At first, she went along with abortion, albeit reluctantly, believing that women's rights to develop their talents and control their destinies required its legal availability. But Betsey (as she was known by her friends) was not one who could avert her eyes from inconvenient facts. The central fact about abortion is that it is the deliberate killing of a developing child in the womb. For Betsey, euphemisms such as "products of conception," "termination of pregnancy," "privacy," and "choice" ultimately could not hide that fact. She came to see that to countenance abortion is not to respect women's "privacy" or liberty; it is to suppose that some people have the right to decide whether others will live or die."

"I think the employees and the officials of the Court equally deserve appreciation from the justices. You have (stood) up with courage in supporting the justices regardless of any personal inconvenience or risk on your part."

"I'm happy that I have seen him. And he's okay, but he's so thin. Skin and bones. Like in this picture."

"More and more, we are being required to know what are the implications of living in a society that is increasingly diverse through the arrival of immigrants from all walks of life and very different parts of the planet. I would like to think that our work is a tangible example of what people can achieve when they work together."

"Being an artist is submitting to the learning that comes from being a mother. It's all the better for the work in the end. It enriches your field of understanding of human nature, all the hards bits and the good bits, the whole thing...Ultimately, the way forward is to be grateful for the blessings that come from accepting those challenges."

"When you're painting, nobody else knows what you're doing and you're the only one who understands it. You've got to have faith in what you're doing and in humanity."

"I couldn't imagine painting anyone I didn't like. When people do appear in my paintings, they're always people for whom I have a special feeling."

"A consistent thread in my work is that it’s made in response to place, and what’s happening around me – physical and social environments provide the raw material, the inspiration, the starting point."

"[A] painting presents its own battle, its own requirements. And a print is never a reproduction of a painting. It makes its own demands, it has its own life, its own thing going for it."

"I want to take care of the teacher so that the teacher in turn will take care of our children, so in turn our children will take care of the future of the country."

"AI's ability to mimic voices is deeply concerning at it can wreak havoc in elections by mimicking candidates' voices."

"When you're painting you feel quite attune with everything... it's a great pleasure, quite addictive."

"I might refer to the female now, but she is always active, symbolic of female action and although painted in a sensual style, she is not up for sale, not offered to the viewer. This is one of the reasons I started using animals."

"It was too hard to be a feminist artist on your own; the criticism was too great to bear."

"They become a body not a person, then just an image not an image of a person."

"I don't want to work unless there is some meaning that by painting I can communicate something personal and political. A painting is ambiguous, very sensuous and has to come from your core."

"I think I would have been more successful, but less interesting."

"I felt very strongly about feminism and photography better expressed my political ideals."

"Art is a structure of symbols, and those people who do not comprehend that language will pass it by."

"Maawa naman sila (They should have pity). If this is to divert attention or (part of) muddling the investigation, spare me from it. Leave me alone first. My family and I are still mourning the death of the father of my children."

"As an island-nation, our country is very vulnerable to the grim effects of global warming that brings extreme weather. It’s hard to imagine what we as individuals can do to resolve a problem of this scale and severity, but all of us, should be proactive in preventing further degradation of our environment."

"Differences are not something to be resented because they add richness, depth, and texture to a marriage. Besides, every couple has areas of incompatibility but smart couples learn how to celebrate the similarities and leverage the differences in ways that say “I love you” and allow for discovery and new growth."

"We have built an institution that transcends political boundaries and that binds us to one another in the true essence of service."

"It’s all about the family, the more you will love your family after watching. Here we will see the real lesson, how can I love my family?"

"We both feel it. 'Cause we are best friends in the movie and in real life. We're like brothers, and we have a line, 'when you live again, you're my guardian angel', in real life he's like that to me."

"ang nanaig ay pagmamahal sa kapatid."

"I, in my capacity as President of the Cinemalaya Foundation, will be able to help the MMDA improve its coverage of this aspect of the Metro Manila Film Festival. Because alternative films are really there also to complement and to also give another view of... to complete the view of what Filipino films are in this country."

"Criticisms are unavoidable. Filmmaking is really like that. These filmmakers should consider themselves lucky because they are in a friendly environment—they have our full support. Imagine if they decided to start on their own.”"

"Be humble enough to accept the fact that you still need mentoring. We have no intention of meddling in their work. The fact that we give a grant means we also have a stake in their films, and we want them to succeed."

"I was the ye ye girl with the miniskirt, at 22 I was already famous, but I wanted to change and I transformed myself into a fifty-year-old woman to sing the authors I loved, like Brel who later became my friend, or Ferré who was like a brother."

"This year, more than the Sanremo Festival, it's a record for the summer because everyone brought songs with choruses, which are very catchy."

"I eat less meat now, also out of respect for animals. Let's say I eat the essentials. Because, after all, we can't just eat fruit and vegetables; we need meat too, if we want to stay healthy."

"I wouldn't have even participated in Canzonissima and other similar events if I hadn't been forced by a contract. I don't sing songs destined to win."

"General practitioners have been largely forgotten in primary healthcare."

"Yes, I almost always do this."

"Walking helps me to write. I’m pretty sure Fiona Farrell has written about how how walking helps her to write."

"I mentioned earlier that I always have a notebook. Usually this is where I draft poems and then maybe weeks later I read back over this notebook. Some things I’ve written look a bit feeble but often there’s something I can use and develop further."

"What I read is often helpful. Sometimes first lines of very good writers make me want to write my own poem almost as a response to theirs. Janet Frame and Anne Carson have done that for me."

"Sometimes being under a particular pressure makes me write easily. Which seems strange. Pressure might be a time constraint, like to write something in 20 minutes. Or it might be a set of ‘rules’, like ‘Write a poem that consists entirely of untrue statements’. I think the hardest thing to do is probably to be told to take as long as you need to write the best poem you possibly can about whatever you think is important. If there are constraints you can always blame them if your poem isn’t as terrific as you would have liked it to be."

"After a gap of time, I can often look at a poem a bit more objectively and see what needs doing to it. I would hardly ever send a poem I’ve just written away to a literary magazine because I am so likely to see things I want to change if I look at it after a few weeks"

"If you want to write in a particular genre it’s likely you’ll read that genre. At the same time I sometimes find that the books that really get me writing are a surprise. It’s not necessarily books of modern poetry that make me want to write poems."

"I’m reading a novel too – it’s called Concluding by Henry Green. It first came out when I was 6 years old but of course I didn’t know anything about him then. He was talked about a bit when I was at university but was never in any of the English papers I did."

"I don’t often feel inspired. I try to keep writing and sometimes something unexpected happens and I find I’m writing more easily and confidently than usual. It’s wonderful when that happens."

"My poems don't start from ideas, but from bits of language, maybe a turn of phrase that's like a tune that plays over and over in my mind. A poem can often be like a game in my head where I want to think about something I don't fully understand. Recently a child said to me, 'I'm not me. I'm someone else. I'm very strong. I'm Richie McCaw.' It's easy when you're four years old to play this sort of game. Writing is one way that as an adult I can take on a different persona. Some of these poems may suggest I live in rest home and that I have won the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship and lived in Menton. I did once spend a happy weekend in Paris, but I've never been to Menton and I have never won the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship. That doesn't stop me wondering what it would be like to be selected for a magnificent prize and live in a remote city. I also wonder what it may be like one day to live in a rest home.'"

"I don’t have a favourite genre. I try to ready widely."

"Things that make me want to write vary."

"There’s almost always a book of poems that I’m reading and I keep it by my bed or in my handbag if the book is skinny enough. At present I am still reading Essential New Zealand Poems and I am also reading Horse with Hat by Marty Smith. I’ve also read some of Milton’s poetry, particular a verse drama called Samson Agonistes that for some reason I never got round to reading when I studied Milton as a university student. (Paula — these books aren’t children’s books in case you think they are."

"Yes, I suppose sometimes I do feel the opposite from inspired and can’t think how to begin or continue anything."