#self-determination

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will."

"The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself."

"The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to be a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself."

"I'm single because I was born that way."

"The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position."

"New Year - a new chapter, new verse, or just the same old story ? Ultimately we write it. The choice is ours."

"LEONATOWell, then, go you into hell?BEATRICENo, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long."

"She might be without country, without nation, but inside her there was still a being that could exist and be free, that could simply say I am without adding a this, or a that, without saying I am Indian, Guyanese, English, or anything else in the world."

"The whole value of solitude depends upon oneself; it may be a sanctuary or a prison, a haven of repose or a place of punishment, a heaven or a hell, as we ourselves make it."

"The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud."

"Stepping onto a brand-new path is difficult, but not more difficult than remaining in a situation, which is not nurturing to the whole woman."

"It may take little time to get where you want to be, but if you pause and think for a moment, you will notice that you are no longer where you were. Do not stop—keep going."

"It's not what you say out of your mouth that determines your life, it's what you whisper to yourself that has the most power!"

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself."

"I'd rather die my way than live yours."

"Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are."

"Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection."

"Life is still better than University. In school, your teacher is the fruit picker and you are the open fruit basket. Then you take those fruits and make cakes and pies. But life is going to give you the chance to go out there and pick those fruits yourself. Then you can eat them, or make them into something else; any which way, your own hands picked them!"

"The best way to predict your future is to create it"

"You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!"