unlike a disappointing marriage, disappointing motherhood cannot be terminated by divorce.

... to be afraid is in a way to be hopeful, because to be afraid means that you haven't given up. You know it doesn't help, but you keep thrashing. The monster has you pinned to the wall, but you're not ready to say, 'Oh, hell, eat me.

[On her mastectomy:] Pity is delicious. I was crazy about the pity I got. It was the best kind, too. I did not get, nor did I want, the drooling, mewing kind. I preferred something more restrained but deep-felt. Quality pity.

unlike a disappointing marriage, disappointing motherhood cannot be terminated by divorce.

Biological possibility and desire are not the same as biological need. Women have childbearing equipment. For them to choose not to use the equipment is no more blocking what is instinctive than it is for a man who, muscles or no, chooses not to be a weightlifter.

The notion that the maternal wish and the activity of mothering are instinctive or biologically predestined is baloney.

[On her mastectomy:] Fact is, I'm the same car I always was, except now I have a dent in my fender.