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This book will raise your confidence. It will help you become comfortable in your skin. It will remind you that you’re lucky to be a woman–because women kick ass.

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We spend so much of our time, maybe all of it, trying to gain peoples shallow approval, and our own approval, by looking attractive, fun, adventurous. By making sure we look like we’re doing life right.

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There is a moment in the book early in Grant’s career as a soldier where he was sent to hunt down a band of guerrillas, shaking with fear as he arrived at their camp only to find they had run away. It was then that he realized the enemy was often as scared of you as you were of them. It changed his approach to battle forever.

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I found out that my mother was from East Orange, New Jersey, which I think is kind of funny. I don’t know why I think it’s funny. You never think of anybody being from East Orange, New Jersey. My guess is she got pregnant at the end of the war by somebody who… is not on the birth certificate, which was the way in those days.