I really feel like if you can get past your fear, if you can say, "Uh-uh, I'm afraid to do that and I'm going to do it anyhow," that that's really the way to have a satisfying life moving forward. I think I had that kind of fearlessness even as a young person. It wasn't tempered by experience or wisdom, but it took me a long way.

I was very driven, very focused, very ambitious. I mean, when I look back on myself in my 20s, part of me just cringes.

A friend and I flew south with our children. During the week we spent together I took off my shoes, let down my hair, took apart my psyche, cleaned the pieces, and put them together again in much improved condition. I feel like a car that's just had a tune-up. Only another woman could have acted as the mechanic.

part of the problem with a war on poverty today is that many Americans have decided that being poor is a character defect, not an economic condition.

I haven't seen so much tippy-toeing around since the last time I went to the ballet. When members of the arts community were askedthis week about one of their biggest benefactors, Philip Morris, and its requests that they lobby the New York City Council on the company's behalf, the pas de deux of self- justification was so painstakingly choreographed that it constituted a performance all by itself.

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

I've been a feminist since I was a teenager, but originally it was because I wanted to make the world a better place for me.