Because I have work to care about, it is possible that I may be less difficult to get along with than other women when the double chins start to form.

— Gloria Steinem

Before she leaves, my new friend tells me to look out of the big picture window at the parking lot." See that purple Harley out there—that big gorgeous one? That's mine. I used to ride behind my husband, and never took the road on my own. Then after the kids were grown, I put my foot down. It was hard, but we finally got to be partners. Now he says he likes it better this way. He doesn't have to worry about his bike breaking down or getting a heart attach and totaling us both. I even put 'Ms.' on my license plate—and you should see my grandkids' faces when Grandma rides up on her purple Harley!" On my own again, I look out at the barren sand and tortured rocks of the Badlands, stretching for miles. I've walked there, and I know that, close up, the barren sand reveals layers of pale rose and beige and cream, and the rocks turn out to have intricate womblike openings. Even in the distant cliffs, caves of rescue appear. What seems to be one thing from a distance is very different close up. I tell you this story because it's the kind of lesson that can be learned only on the road. And also because I've come to believe that, inside, each of us has a purple motorcycle. We have only to discover it—and ride.

— Gloria Steinem

Being graded for memorizing male accomplishments with the deep message that we can learn what others do but never do it ourselves.

— Gloria Steinem

But why didn't you leave? Why didn't you take my sister and go to New York?" she would say it didn't matter, that she was lucky to have my sister and me. If I pressed hard enough, she would add, "If I'd left, you never would have been born." I never had the courage to say: But you would have been born instead.

— Gloria Steinem

Childbirth is more admirable than conquest, more amazing than self-defense, and as courageous as either one.

— Gloria Steinem

Citizens who refuse to obey anything but their own conscience can transform countries, it is the basis of any real democracy.

— Gloria Steinem

Clearly no one knows what leadership has gone undiscovered in women of all races, and in black and other minority men.

— Gloria Steinem

Despite all their faults, campaigns are based on the fact that every vote counts, and therefore every person counts. As freestanding societies, they are more open than academia, more idealistic than corporations, more unifying than religions, and more accessible than government itself.

— Gloria Steinem

Don't write when you're angry and under deadline, with time to test it only on friends who know what you mean, not on strangers who don't.

— Gloria Steinem

Dying seems less sad than having lived too little.

— Gloria Steinem