In True Grit, the teenage heroine talks back so boldly to the brutal outlaw who is her captor that he says admiringly, "You don’t varnish your opinions much, do you?"  No, and neither did a lot of other females in 2010. Here, our favorite noisemaking women, from Julia Roberts and Cher to  Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin (who are each quoted more than once here—with Palin not only delivering great lines but inspiring them).

“How is that hope-y, change-y stuff working out for you?"

—Sarah Palin in her keynote address to a Tea Party convention in Nashville, TN, 2/4/10 

“On Fox News, they address her as Governor Palin. Which is like calling me ‘Dairy Queen employee.’ I was once, but I quit.”

—Tina Fey on Late Night with David Letterman, 11/3/10

"Your face tells a story—and it shouldn’t be a story about your drive to the doctor’s office."

—Julia Roberts on why she says no to facial fillers, Elle, 8/4/10

“I’m not a witch.”

—Christine O’Donnell, Delaware candidate for Senator, in a televised ad, 10/4/10

“I’m not a lesbian—I’m not even kind of a lesbian.”

—Oprah Winfrey to Barbara Walters, 12/9/10

“If you look at American TV, as much of the rest of the world does, you would think we all went around wrestling and wearing bikinis. I mean, that’s what you would think we spend our entire day doing, right?”

—Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during an Australian radio interview, 11/8/10

“I feel like a bumper car. If I hit a wall, I’m backing up and going in another direction. And I’ve hit plenty of ****ing walls in my career. But I’m not stopping. I think maybe that’s my best quality. I just don’t stop.”

—Cher, Vanity Fair, December, 2010

“In Washington, we know there’s a huge difference between a prostitute and a politician. There are some things a prostitute won’t do.”

—Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) at the Washington Gridiron Dinner, 3/21/10

“I’ve always said that at the end of the world there will be roaches, Ozzy and Keith Richards.”

—Sharon Osbourne, The Guardian, 11/5/10

“Before we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor. They would say, ‘I’ll paint your house.’ I meant, that’s the old days of what people would do to get health care with your doctors. Doctors are very sympathetic people. I’m not backing down from that system.”

—Sue Lowden, Republican Senate candidate in Nevada, 4/19/10

"My sons are very impressed that I was chosen. It only took me 40 years to impress them, but I’ve finally done it."

—Paula Deen, on being asked to toss the coin before kickoff of the Rose Bowl game,People, 10/27/10

“I was very lucky when I was no longer the juicy young thing anymore…That was when I was asked to do Prime Suspect."

—Helen Mirren, Los Angeles Times, 12/12/10

"Generally for me, slimness comes with a little bit of upset or stress. I’d rather be fat and happy, to be honest."

—Charlotte Church, singer,Daily Mail, 10/5/10

"I just wanted to reach across the airwaves and the years and ask you to consider something."

—Virginia Thomas, wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in an October, 2010 voice mail asking Brandeis University professor Anita Hill to apologize for accusing Thomas of sexual harassment during his 1991 confirmation hearings

"I’ve never been a drinker, I’ve never gotten into drugs … You know, I think I have such a close family … I think you know my sisters do enough drinking to kind of fill up the whole family."

—Kim Kardashian, Tonight, 9/1/10

 "I sat next to her once, thought she was beautiful. And I think she’s very happy in Alaska — and I hope she’ll stay there."