Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I'm constantly anxious about making mistakes.
Probably being in politics is the worst place for me to be.
This stardust won't settle, because none of us should settle.
I am sure having a baby around a working environment changes the tone a little bit.
I have a collection of ukuleles. I meant to graduate to the guitar, but I never did.
You can't ask other people to believe you and vote for you if you don't back yourself.
Everyone knows that I have just accepted, with short notice, the worst job in politics.
Taking on a leadership role doesn't mean that you only have to be personally ambitious.
Everything I've ever thought about doing has been, in some sense, about helping people.
My grandma was a very traditional woman but, at the same time, would want me to have kids.
Back in the early days of my political career, I was called Socialist Cindy. I just hate the nickname Cindy.
I would absolutely classify as being incredibly progressive the fact that I am the third female prime minister.
I want to be a good leader, not a good lady leader. I don't want to be known simply as the woman who gave birth.
I'm the one who's put myself into politics, so I'm the one that really should be wearing that front-facing role.
I never, ever grew up as a young woman believing that my gender would stand in the way of doing anything I wanted.
If you sit and wait to feel like you are the most confident person in the room, you are probably going to be left by yourself.
I thought, how do I reflect the generosity, particularly of all the iwi who gifted us names - and Te Aroha seemed to be a way.
How great it would be for us all to have the pride of knowing that we, as a country, are one of the best countries to be a child.
We aspire to be a government for all New Zealanders and one that will seize the opportunity to build a fairer, better New Zealand.
The fact I'm the third female Prime Minister, I never grew up believing my gender would stand in the way of doing anything I wanted.
I do find it slightly offensive that everyone thinks that every New Zealander starred in either 'Lord of the Rings' or 'The Hobbit.'
As soon as I came in as leader, we had seven weeks to an election, so we had to be entirely focused on the job we had in front of us.
I was there when Gordon Brown basically was taking over - so right in the middle of that transition. It was fantastic; I learnt a lot.
Issues like obesity do, as you well know, have a knock-on effect to diabetes. So we all are better off if we invest early in prevention.
I definitely try not to get too caught up in putting too much of a gender or age assessment on everything - I've just got to get on with it.
Te Aroha was something we settled on quite early. It was our way of reflecting the amount of love this baby's been shown before she even arrived.
I don't think that the next generation should fear just being who they are rather than confirming to an expectation of what they are meant to be.
We will work hard to ensure New Zealand is once again a world leader, a country we can all be proud of. We said we could do this; we will do this.
When you're a bit of an anxious person, and you constantly worry about things, there comes a point where certain jobs are just really bad for you.
If we want to make workplaces more open, we need to acknowledge logistical challenges... by being more open, it might create a path for other women.
The thing that drives people more often than not is they genuinely feel that they can make a difference. So that means there are nice people in politics.
From a personal perspective, I am so looking forward to my new role as a parent. But I am equally focused on my job and responsibilities as prime minister.
I have a partner who can be there alongside me, who's taking up a huge part of that joint responsibility, because he's a parent, too - he's not a babysitter.
When I came into politics, I remember reading these scorecards of my performance, and I would routinely have these comments about not being assertive enough.
I credit the women who came before me and credit New Zealanders for welcoming me having a child... positivity outweighed negativity. I'm proud of the nation.
It is a woman's decision about when they choose to have children, and it should not predetermine whether or not they are given a job or have job opportunities.
I hate the idea of anyone thinking that I don't put a lot of thought about the cost to taxpayers. I make our ministers travel to events in vans to pool together.
Never feel like you have to tick all of the boxes on everything to be able to feel like you can do a job. I have heard it said many times before, and it is so true.
I might be at the odd press conference with a little bit of spill on me because I'm not going to hide the imperfections of parenting. I don't think anyone needs that.
The most difficult thing for us to do is to mitigate and offset our agricultural emissions. If we find a way to do that, then we're showing other countries how to do it, too.
I am a thinker, and I do muse over things a lot and am constantly assessing whether I am doing enough or what I should be doing more of to make sure I am not letting anyone down.
Lots of people juggle a lot of things in their personal and private lives, and I'm not unusual in that. Plenty of women have multitasked before me, and I want to acknowledge that.
I worked as long in a fish and chip shop as I did in Parliament. I've had particular experiences in politics, but they're not my only ones, and they're not the ones that defined me.
We're looking to ways to build in the responsibility we have on climate change and the way that we approach, potentially, climate change refuges in the future amongst our neighbors.
Ultimately, I do want us to be a transformative government. I want, when we've left, for people to say we're not just clean-green anymore: we're carbon neutral, or we're striving to be.
I think that has to do with our perception of politics. There are nice politicians. There is something about this job that does take an extra bit of motivation to get out of bed in the morning.
I'd say it was always in me - it's just what's required of you is very different in the moment that you become leader. When you're part of a team, you defer, and you're there to support your leader.
It becomes tricky if you ever try to partition off what might be seen as sexist criticism. To be honest, I just don't engage. The best way I can rebel against those notions is being competent, good at my job.
I'll be prime minister and a mum, and Clarke will be 'first man of fishing' and stay-at-home dad. I think it's fair to say that this will be a wee one that a village will raise, but we couldn't be more excited.
One of the things I'm so determined to preserve and restore is the fact that you can be the kid who was born in Dinsdale and find yourself working for the British government in the U.K., to being prime minister.