Being a public defender makes you incredibly paranoid - and I would say with reason - about law enforcement.
Ayelet WaldmanIf only shame were a reliable engine for behavior modification. All it does is make me feel bad, which inspires me to bust open a bag of cheese popcorn, which then makes me feel crappy about my weight.
Ayelet WaldmanI am consumed, or I have been consumed, with these issues of motherhood and the way we act out societal expectations and roles. So both my nonfiction and my fiction have been pretty much exclusively about that.
Ayelet WaldmanDespite the fact that in America we incarcerate more juveniles for life terms than in any other country in the world, the truth is that the vast majority of youth offenders will one day be released. The question is simple and stark. Do we want to help them change or do we want to help them become even more violent and dangerous?
Ayelet WaldmanIn fact if I see you drinking I'll come down on you like a ton of bricks and call your mom.
Ayelet WaldmanThe legalization of drugs, a proliferation of a public health approach to drug use and drug addition, a compassionate mental health system. And can we just say gender equality and the end of mass incarceration and the final shedding of the vestiges of a slave-based nation? Can we have that, too? Can I have it all?
Ayelet Waldman