Carrie Fisher , the actress who played Princess Leia in the Star Wars saga, passed away a few years ago after battling the aftermath of a heart attack.

I cannot express the depth of my pain in that moment. Like many others, Leia was my first heroine . The model I aspired to since I was a child. Beyond the criticism that people who are not followers of Star Wars can make me, no one can deny that the leader of the Rebellion was a great example for a 5-year-old girl to follow.

The real-life Carrie was also a great role model. Certainly, she had to deal with bipolar disorder from a very young age, which led to her becoming dependent on drugs for a few years. He would later recover and use his experience with complete frankness to give a voice to people living with mental illness. Already in her maturity, she would become a tireless warrior for women’s rights.

I am sure that his most famous character was the first heroine of many entrepreneurs. Leia embodied the strength to face with integrity the most terrible circumstances that many of us would like to have when starting a business. That is why, and as a simple but very personal tribute, I want to collect some of Fisher’s phrases that have inspired me the most, since they show that you can be brave on a day-to-day basis, facing personal demons.

1. “I had to be the only girl in a fantasy full of men. A great opportunity for a woman “

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Fisher became a strong advocate for women’s rights in the later years of her life and understood the power Princess Leia had to inspire little girls. What’s more, he used to say that if you had to stay linked to a character forever, there was no other better than the leader of the Galactic Rebellion.

2. “Since I was born into a public family, I never had a private life. I prefer to tell my experiences as I lived them “

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This is how Fisher explained his different books and plays that talk about mental problems. She used to say that recounting her experiences freed her, prevented others from taking over the details of her life, and made shame insignificant.

3. “I feel very sane about how crazy I am”

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The actress went through a very dark period in the 1980s, when she was addicted to sleeping pills. He even ended up in the hospital for an overdose in 1985. The experience helped him to write several books and even plays.

4. “Living as a manic-depressive requires a lot of balls”

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This is how he expressed it in his book Wishful Drinking, in which he tried to give a more human face to a complex mental illness and remove the taboo that exists around it. He used to say that running day-to-day despite having the condition was “something to be very proud of, not ashamed of.”

5. “I am Princess Leia, no matter what.”

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Fisher used to say that no one was going to remember that he wrote several books or that he was in When Harry met Sally and that if he wanted a table in a restaurant he would always turn to his character. In many of her writings the actress spoke of how difficult it was to accept that she only looked like Leia and that she was the famous one, not Carrie.