The world is full of women blindsided by the unceasing demands of motherhood, still flabbergasted by how a job can be terrific andtorturous, involving and utterly tedious, all at the same time. The world is full of women made to feel strange because what everyone assumes comes naturally is so difficult to do--never mind to do well.

I think there are some stories that need to be told by a specific person as opposed to in the third person.

I would even go to Washington, which is saying something for me, just to glimpse Jane Q. Public, being sworn in as the first female president of the United States, while her husband holds the Bible and wears a silly pill box hat and matching coat.

... It was the idea of facing a future skimming the surface of life, winging my way in and out of other people's crises, confusions, and passages, engaging them enough to get the story, but never enough to be indelibly touched by what I had seen or heard.

Now the baby boomers, i.e., us, are getting older, and were suddenly discovering that there are great things about getting older. You have time for your friendships and you appreciate them in ways that you didn't before.

Life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement.

People always blame the girl; she should have said no. A monosyllable, but conventional wisdom has always been that boys can't manage it.