Choose the kids. There will be plenty of time later to choose work.

But never fear, gentlemen; castration was really not the point of feminism, and we women are too busy eviscerating one another to take you on.

Women writers of all people should know better than to pigeonhole women, put them in little groups, the smart one, the sweet one.

Choose the kids. There will be plenty of time later to choose work.

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.

A life of unremitting caution, without the carefree - or even, occasionally, the careless - may turn out to be half a life.

I did not read from a sense of superiority, or advancement, or even learning. I read because I loved it more than any other activity on earth.