These are my words; this is their world, a world in which we can wear our gender on our sleeves, unabashedly, as we go about the business of thinking out loud.

You just can't tell or calibrate motive or intelligence or sense. So I don't read anything unless someone tells me that it's really smart or illuminating. I don't read any reviews anymore and it's been really liberating.

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.

I think a lot of people, but particularly a lot of women, get to this stage when I'd say they're over 50. We face a lot of hard judgment from the world, we women. If you're a full-time mother, you should be out working. If you're out working, your kids must be being overlooked.

All reading is good reading. And all reading of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens is sublime reading.

Uncontrollable consumerism has become a watchword of our culture despite regular and compelling calls for its end. The United States has more malls than high schools; Americans spend more time shopping than reading. ... Some of the most insightful writing about the American character over the nation's history has been about neither freedom nor democracy but about the crazed impulse to acquire things.

When you really want to say no, say no. You can't do everything - or at least not well.