To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society

I agreed to take part in a New York University Institute for Humanities conference a year ago. . . .

My fear of anger taught me nothing.

The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women. It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized sensation.

Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.

You know how fighting fish do it? They blow bubbles and in each one of those bubbles is an egg and they float the egg up to the surface. They keep this whole heavy nest of eggs floating, and they're constantly repairing it. It's as if they live in both elements.

Part of the lesbian consciousness is an absolute recognition of the erotic within our lives and, taking that a step further, dealing with the erotic not only in sexual terms.