It has been called the Year of the Woman, and rightly so — defined by historic political victories in the United States, #MeToo-fueled uprisings around the world, and women, like Christine Blasey-Ford, who pushed fear aside to be heard.

It can be hard to quantify a year in a few stories or a few sentences, so I decided to do it in quotations instead. Here are a few of the most compelling stories of 2018 as told through the voices of the women who shaped them.

A year of political firsts

“We can’t knock on anybody’s doors, we have to build our own house.”

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the youngest woman ever elected to Congress

Women upended the political landscape in last month’s midterm elections, with a record 36 new women winning House seats. There will be at least 102 women in the House next year, the largest number in history. The vast majority of the newcomers are Democrats, including the first two Muslim congresswomen and first two Native American congresswomen, and the youngest woman ever elected.