As I started getting older, I realized, 'I'm so happy!' I didn't expect this! I wasn't happy when I was young.
— Jane Fonda
Instead of drifting along like a leaf in a river, understand who you are and how you come across to people and what kind of an impact you have on the people around you and the community around you and the world, so that when you go out, you can feel you have made a positive difference.
I don't want to make a cheap analysis, but when you have, like I did, a father incapable of showing emotion, who spends his life telling you that no one will love you if you aren't perfect, it leaves scars.
I see many more men who are feminist, or at least who have learned about life in the context of feminism.
I never was a hippie! I went to India because so many friends like Mia Farrow and the Beatles were going there to discover truth. And so I went and trekked through India by myself, but instead of discovering truth, I wanted to join the Peace Corps.
I'm now the elder in the position of doling out wisdom and trying to mend fences.
I lived in France during the '60s. I was there from the early '60s until 1970, so my view of the '60s is more global. It was a time of tremendous transition, not only for America but for the whole world.
You don't learn from successes; you don't learn from awards; you don't learn from celebrity; you only learn from wounds and scars and mistakes and failures. And that's the truth.
Seek women mentors. If you're a businesswoman, look at the TEDx conferences. There's a lot of businesswomen that speak on there. I find them extremely inspiring.
I'm not sure that I would have become a Christian if I had continued to live in Hollywood because the notion wouldn't have occurred to me.
We are living on average today 34 years longer than our great-grandparents did.
The reality is sobering: in the United States one in three girls will become pregnant before age 20, totaling more than 750,000 girls per year.
The bond between a parent and child is the primary bond, the foundation for the rest of the child's life. The presence or absence of this bond determines much about the child's resiliency and what kind of adult they will grow up to be.
While not impossible, it is especially challenging for teenage parents to develop bonds with their children. A high percent of them were themselves children of teenage parents and have never experienced appropriate parenting.
Children born to teens have less supportive and stimulating environments, poorer health, lower cognitive development, and worse educational outcomes. Children of teen mothers are at increased risk of being in foster care and becoming teen parents themselves, thereby repeating the cycle.
I remember saying goodbye to my father the night he left to join the Navy. He didn't have to. He was older than other servicemen and had a family to support but he wanted to be a part of the fight against fascism, not just make movies about it. I admired this about him.
My childhood was influenced by the roles my father played in his movies. Whether Abraham Lincoln or Tom Joad in the 'Grapes of Wrath,' his characters communicated certain values which I try to carry with me to this day.
Real love and intimacy can be much more possible when you're older.
I've done four videos for older people under my new brand, Prime Time, and the missing link was yoga. I'm aiming it for older people - people who have never worked out or who are recovering from a surgery and have to start slow. It's easy, you can't get hurt, it's very doable, and I've done it in ten-minute segments.
I was always a courageous woman, capable of confronting governments but not men.
Feminism is not just about women; it's about letting all people lead fuller lives.
My love life is wonderful.
I think the Internet and technology in general has changed everything. We can see it overseas even more with the Arab Spring and so forth.
I love films that make you feel good when you come out and, in my opinion, there's not enough of them these days.
I am able to talk about my life in a way that helps other women - and men, but mostly women - understand their own life. I feel real proud of that. And then the fact that my children are okay. You know, you're only as happy as your least happy child. So if your kids aren't okay, you're not good.
I am blessed beyond reason with women friends.
I feel like when I was an adolescent, and felt so unworthy of love and so empty, I moved outside of myself.
It's about time we make the well-being of our young people more important than ideology and politics. As a country, we benefit from investing in their future by investing in teen pregnancy prevention.
We can no longer waste time and money. Every day, more than 2,000 girls in America, age 15-19, give birth - in the wealthiest, most educated nation in the world! Neither you nor I should accept this statistic.
Think about it: Reducing crime and poverty and ensuring that we have an educated, stable work force has a direct effect on you and me and the future of our country.
Our young people are assets to be cultivated and nurtured; let's begin treating them that way.
What we view in the media - and who presents it to us - does so much to determine how we think, how we feel about ourselves, and how we view the world.
I took every chance I could to meet with U.S. soldiers. I talked with them and read the books they gave me about the war. I decided I needed to return to my country and join with them - active duty soldiers and Vietnam Veterans in particular - to try and end the war.
The people who did you wrong or who didn't quite know how to show up, you forgive them. And forgiving them allows you to forgive yourself too.
The most important thing to do as you age is to stay physically active. Lots of people just throw in the towel if they can't do what they used to do, and that's terrible.
I was a chameleon, the woman men wanted me to be.
The only thing I have never known is true intimacy with a man. I absolutely wanted to discover that before dying.
Some people are surprised that the Republicans are waging a war on women, or that they voted against equal pay for women. I'm not surprised at all. In some ways, it may be a good thing. They're defending the patriarchy, which is a wounded beast! And wounded beasts are always dangerous.
When I was at the age when you were supposed to be glamorous if you were a movie star, I wasn't.
The '60s may be idealized in the movie from a cultural point of view, but the decade was all about discord and a big generational split that was very painful.
I love mistakes because it's the only way you learn.
Through therapy and a lot of thinking and writing my memoirs, I've been able to use my life as a lesson.
I think feminism is about the spirit.
We're still living with the old paradigm of age as an arch. That's the old metaphor: You're born, you peak at midlife and decline into decrepitude.
Our youth deserve the opportunity to complete their high school and college education, free of early parenthood. Their future children deserve the opportunity to grow up in financially and emotionally stable homes. Our communities benefit from healthy, productive, well-prepared young people.
If adolescent pregnancy prevention is to become a priority, then our strategy, as advocates, must contain two key elements: civic engagement and education.
If we as a nation are to break the cycle of poverty, crime and the growing underclass of young people ill equipped to be productive citizens, we need to not only implement effective programs to prevent teen pregnancy, but we must also help those who have already given birth so that they become effective, nurturing, bonding parents.
The capacity of young people to persevere, even under the most adverse conditions, never ceases to amaze me.
I know how gratifying it is not only to work in film but to be acknowledged by peers; producing '9 to 5' was an opportunity that I valued precisely because it's so rarely in the hands of women.
I grew up with a deep belief that wherever our troops fought, they were on the side of the angels.
