"NGOs have a significant role to play, alongside governments, in improving the status of women"

"Amongst Women concentrated on the family, and the new book concentrates on a small community. The dominant units in Irish society are the family and the locality. The idea was that the whole world would grow out from that small space"

"America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children"

"It didn't even occur to me that I'm the last person in the world who should play salsa or Brazilian music"

"To a philosopher all news, as it is called, is gossip, and they who edit and read it are old women over their tea"

"But I think there's a genuine joy, too, a sense that no matter what, even if my stomach's growling, I'm going to dance. That's what I want to leave people with at the end of the play. After all this, people still know how to live"

"Some of the best roles are for women in these independent, smaller movies"

"I used to play sports. Then I realized you can buy trophies. Now I am good at everything"

"If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies"

"Women are oppressed in the east, in the west, in the south, in the north. Women are oppressed inside, outside home, a woman is oppressed in religion, she is oppressed outside religion"

"Black women have always been these vixens, these animalistic erotic women. Why can't we just be the sexy American girl next door?"