Angelina Jolie

I made a decision to have a preventive double mastectomy. I started with the breasts, as my risk of breast cancer is higher than my risk of ovarian cancer, and the surgery is more complex. ”

Breast cancer alone kills some 458,000 people each year, according to the World Health Organization, mainly in low- and middle-income countries. It has got to be a priority to ensure that more women can access gene testing and lifesaving preventive treatment, whatever their means and background, wherever they live. ”

To be in any way a positive contribution, that's all anybody wants to be. It's all I've ever wanted to be. I wanted to be an artist, be a mother. You want to feel that in your life you've been of use, in whatever way that comes out. ”

Sexism is part of every industry and must be addressed. But I try not to focus on the negative but the positive side of what we can bring. ”

If there is even one woman out there who went and got checked and found that she had cancer or she was positive and she caught something in time, and if in any small way I was a part of that, it makes me very emotional. ”

It is a joy to be an artist, but it doesn't mean very much unless that work is somehow useful in some way and contributes to others. ”

My mother was a full-time mother. She didn't have much of her own career, her own life, her own experiences... everything was for her children. I will never be as good a mother as she was. She was just grace incarnate. She was the most generous, loving - she's better than me. ”

There's certainly a side of me that isn't completely... sane. Or completely 'even' all the time. We all have our dark sides. ”

I'd like to think that I'm a calm and sweet person. I tend to be very playful at home with my children, but in life... we have to fight our battles - our work battles, our political battles, our personal battles - and we're focused. ”

I knew through the surgeries that he was on my side and that this wasn't something where I was gonna feel less of a woman, because my husband wasn't gonna let that happen. ”