Think of life as a terminal illness, because, if you do, you will live it with joy and passion, as it ought to be lived.
Voices that loud are always meant to bully. Do not be bullied. Acts of bravery don't always take place on battlefields. They can take place in your heart, when you have the courage to honor your character, your intellect, your inclinations, and, yes your soul by listening to its clean, clear voice of direction instead of following the muddied messages of a timid world.
But never fear, gentlemen; castration was really not the point of feminism, and we women are too busy eviscerating one another to take you on.
A man who builds his own pedestal had better use strong cement.
I came to the realization that there were certain public issues that were most usefully dealt with within some sort of framework of at least my private beliefs, if not my private life.
The truth about your own life is not always easy to accept, and sometimes hasn't even occurred to you.
I can't think of anything to write about except families. They are a metaphor for every other part of society.
When an actress takes off her clothes onscreen but a nursing mother is told to leave, what message do we send about the roles of women? In some ways we're as committed to the old madonna-whore dichotomy as ever. And the madonna stays home, feeding the baby behind the blinds, a vestige of those days when for a lady to venture out was a flagrant act of public exposure.
There's a certain kind of conversation you have from time to time at parties in New York about a new book. The word "banal" sometimes rears its by-now banal head; you say "underedited," I say "derivative." The conversation goes around and around various literary criticisms, and by the time it moves on one thing is clear: No one read the book; we just read the reviews.
I think that anyone who comes upon a Nautilus machine suddenly will agree with me that its prototype was clearly invented at some time in history when torture was considered a reasonable alternative to diplomacy.