Time’s Most Influential People 2014 list is here, and it features quite a lot of great people, a fair few women and some really fantastic, intantly quotable parts. Here are our favourite bits from the 100 entries:
Sheryl Sandberg on Beyoncé
'Beyoncé doesn’t just sit at the table. She builds a better one.'
Malala putting her support behind Hillary Clinton
'A world with more women leaders will be a better world, and Hillary Clinton is helping make that possible.'
Dolly Parton laying down some wisdom about goddaughter Miley Cyrus - without being judgy (we wish we could just copy and paste the entire thing here.)
‘If I didn’t know how smart and talented Miley is, I might worry about her. But I’ve watched her grow up. So I don’t. She knows what she’s doing... Cause the girl can write. The girl can sing. The girl is smart. And she doesn’t have to be so drastic. But I will respect her choices. I did it my way, so why can’t she do it her way?’
Emily Blunt musing on 'silly, funny, dirty' Amy Adams
‘There’s a certain mystique about Amy that helps the audience go with her on this chameleon of a career, from Enchanted to The Fighter to American Hustle. And I don’t think she’s discovered her full bag of tricks even yet.’
Madeleine Albright burning Putin like he’s Rizla doused in spirits
‘Putin’s worldview is colored by toxic fictions.’
Lupita Nyong’o on her 12 Years A Slave director Steve McQueen
‘It really feels collaborative and exploratory to work with him. What he managed to create was a sacred space where everyone respected the story we were telling. He gave us reassurance that this was for something bigger than all of us.’
James Franco doing a lot of name-dropping in his ode to performance artist Marina Abramovic
‘Marina most powerful is Marina most simple, Marina as Marina. I love the simple Marina, the powerful Marina, when the artist is present within her.’
Christy Turlington Burns being adulated by Melinda Gates for her work to promote maternal health (which, um, we never knew about, so thanks for the heads up)
'She made the documentary No Woman, No Cry to raise awareness of maternal mortality. Then she founded Every Mother Counts, which provides health education, medicine and emergency care in poor countries.’
Gabrielle Giffords (the US representative who was shot in the head when making a speech in Tucson in 2011) talking about Malala Yousafzai (who herself was shot in the head when by the Taliban on her way to school in 2012)
‘Malala is a testament that women everywhere will not be intimidated into silence. We will make our voices heard.’
Time also got a US footballer who managed Germany’s national team to write about Angela Merkel, Joe Klein to write about Barack Obama, Barack Obama to write about the Pope, director Richard Linklater to write about Matthew McConaughey, Divergent star Shailene Woodley to write about John Green, Colin Firth on Benedict Cumberbatch, Chelsea Clinton on the NBA’s first openly gay athlete, Jason Collins (they went to uni together), J. Crew’s creative director Jenna Lyons on Net-A-Porter founder Natalie Massenet and Stella McCartney on Céline’s Phoebe Philo.
And then there are writers, activists, and politicians. And Withelma “T” Ortiz Walker Pettigrew and Erwiana Sulistyaningsih, who have both powerfully spoken out about being used as slaves. Bascially, it’s full of interesting stuff, so set a few moments aside to give all the entries a read.
** Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson**
Picture: Getty
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.