I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.

What I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid?

The transformation of silence into language and action is an act of self-revelation .

Learning not to crumple before these uncertainties fuels my resolve to print myself upon the texture of each day fully rather than forever.

The absence of any consideration of lesbian consciousness or the consciousness of third world women leaves a serious gap within this conference. . . .

But the question is a matter of the survival and the teaching. That's what our work comes down to. No matter where we key into it, it's the same work, just different pieces of ourselves doing it.

Pain is important: how we evade it, how we succumb to it, how we deal with it, how we transcend it. ... pain will always either change or stop. Always. ... The confidence that it will change is what makes bearing it possible. So pain is fluid. It is only when you conceive of it as something static that it is unbearable.