No song or poem will bear my mother's name. Yet so many of the stories that I write, that we all write, are my mother's stories.

The infinite faith I have in people's ability to understand anything that makes sense has always been justified, finally, by their behavior.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me, along with the growth of vegetation from the earth and of hair from the head, is the growth of understanding.

... my mother adorned with flowers whatever shabby house we were forced to live in.

Abortion, for many women, is more than an experience of suffering beyond anything most men will ever know, it is an act of mercy, and an act of self-defense.

My parents taught me service - not by saying, but by doing. That was my culture, the culture of my family.

In the far upper corner of my altar is a photo of Joan Crawford in her most fierce Mommy Dearest mode, just to remind me of some of the cost of everyone's hard-earned sweetness and light.