Writing this book is not just me encouraging others to lean in. This is me leaning in. Writing this book is what I would do if I weren't afraid. - Sheryl Sandberg

Statements of opinion are always more constructive in the first person “I” form.

... I could challenge the notion that I was constantly headed for failure.

In China, women who are single past the age of twenty-seven are stigmatized as sheng nu, or “leftover women.” They face severe pressure from their families to marry, stemming from the widespread belief that regardless of education and professional achievement, a woman is “absolutely nothing until she is married.” One thirty-six-year-old economics professor was rejected by fifteen men because she had an advanced degree; her father then forbade her younger sister from going to graduate school.