America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security.

You write to suit some sense in yourself and trust that that will resonate with a certain wider readership.

Well, I'd like to think I am, and I'd also like to think that we're all having a lot more fun getting older than we pretend. It was interesting to me when I first started working on this book that I'd mentioned that I was writing a memoir about aging and everybody would moan and groan and carry on.

I do get a sense that there's a huge disconnect between the political powers and what's really happening, so right-wing conservatives can talk about contraception all they want, but the women of America are using birth control. It's as simple as that.

The great motherhood friendships are the ones in which two women can admit [how difficult mothering is] quietly to each other, over cups of tea at a table sticky with spilled apple juice and littered with markers without tops.

All of the qualities that you need to be a good opinion columnist tend to be qualities that aren't valued in women.

I feel about exercise the same way that I feel about a few other things: that there is nothing wrong with it if it is done in private by consenting adults.