With over 3 million women battling breast cancer today everywhere you turn there is a mother daughter sister or friend who has been affected by breast cancer.

Breast cancer is not just a disease that strikes at women. It strikes at the very heart of who we are as women: how others perceive us how we perceive ourselves how we live work and raise our families-or whether we do these things at all.

I have to admit like so many women I always knew there was a chance. But like so many women I never thought it would be me. I never thought I'd hear those devastating words: 'You have breast cancer.'

Against the beautiful and the clever and the successful one can wage a pitiless war but not against the unattractive: then the millstone weighs on the breast.

Breast cancer deaths in America have been declining for more than a decade. Much of that success is due to early detection and better treatments for women. I strongly encourage women to get a mammogram.

Suppressed grief suffocates it rages within the breast and is forced to multiply its strength.

To smile at the jest which plants a thorn in another's breast is to become a principal in the mischief.

And I thought I would just share with you what science says today about silicone breast implants. If you have them you're healthier than if you don't. In fact there's no science that shows that silicone breast implants are detrimental and in fact they make you healthier.

If you have a friend or family member with breast cancer try not to look at her with 'sad eyes.' Treat her like you always did just show a little extra love.

I have a new found respect for women who have been through breast cancer and this surgery.

Nature that framed us of four elements warring within our breasts for regiment doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

Music has charms to sooth a savage breast to soften rocks or bend a knotted oak.

Get up tomorrow early in the morning and earlier than you did today and do the best that you can. Always stay near me for tomorrow I will have much to do and more than I ever had and tomorrow blood will leave my body above the breast.

American men as a group seem to be interested in only two things money and breasts. It seems a very narrow outlook.

My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer when I was 13 and it was something we weren't really aware of as a family.

Cancer has been unfortunately in my life. My mom's best friend is kicking ass in her battle with breast cancer. Both of my grandmas had cancer. I recently lost a friend to cancer.

My mom breastfed me for more than a year and I can't imagine doing it any other way. It's cheap and much better for the environment and you don't have to lug all that stuff around.

My mom she's a breast cancer survivor and because of that I had started getting mammograms once a year starting at age 30.

Some people think having large breasts makes a woman stupid. Actually it's quite the opposite: a woman having large breasts makes men stupid.

I have no qualms about saying I am more confident in the medical treatment in America. The breast cancer survival rate is 20 per cent higher than in the UK.

I read somewhere that Mitt and I have a 'storybook marriage.' Well in the storybooks I read there were never long long rainy winter afternoons in a house with five boys screaming at once. And those storybooks never seemed to have chapters called MS or breast cancer.

This was our last stop. This was it. We had those two embryos that we had banked prior to learning about the breast cancer and with the medicine she was on this was our last effort. The prayers were answered.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast: Man never is but always To be Blest.

I am passionate about talking to women about their breast health.