Surely the freedom of women must mean more to us than the freedom of pimps.

Feminism exists so that no woman ever has to face her abuser in isolation, alone.

I have spent 20 years writing these books. Had I wanted to say men are beasts and scream, that takes 30 seconds.

In her heart she is a mourner for those who have not survived. In her soul she is a warrior for those who are now as she was then. In her life she is both celebrant and proof of women's capacity and will to survive, to become, to act, to change self and society. And each year she is stronger and there are more of her.

Writing is alchemy. Dross becomes gold. Experience is transformed. Pain is changed. Suffering may become song. The ordinary or horrible is pushed by the will of the writer into grace or redemption, a prophetic wail, a screed for justice, an elegy of sadness or sorrow. ... There is always a tension between experience and the thing that finally carries it forward, bears its weight, holds it in. Without that tension, one might as well write a shopping list.

No woman needs intercourse; few women escape it.

In my own life, I don't have intercourse. That is my choice.