There's this brutal imperial power, that my passport says I represent. But it will never represent where my heart lives, only vaguely where it went.

I don't need anyone to hold me, I can hold my own.

I just see a lot of people who are really terrified of the "f-word." A lot of women these days, a lot of young women don't want to call themselves feminists.

I believe the act of giving birth to be the single most miraculous thing a human being can do and it is surely the moment when a lot of women finally understand the depth of their power. You think it can’t possibly be done, you think you can’t possibly take the pain, and then you do-—and afterward you look at yourself in a whole new way. If you can do that, you can do anything.

My mother was a feminist, and she gave me some tools of self-possession and self-empowerment, but now that I have lived here for forty-three years, it's, like, whoa, there is just so much more to do, other than become myself. I'm still talking about it. I still drop the P-word, "patriarchy," on unsuspecting people in everyday conversations.

Too much is how I love you, but too well is how I know you.

Don't tell me what they did to you as though you had no choice. Tell me, isn't that your picture? Isn't that your voice.