Power is the ability to take one's place in whatever discourse is essential to action and the right to have one's part matter.

Most full lives are filled with empty gestures.

Whether deliberately, unconsciously or accidentally, she seems to have composed her own life so that its fitful, rudderless, and self-doubting first half was alchemized into gold when the austere bluestocking became the fallen woman.

Ironically, women who acquire power are more likely to be criticized for it than are the men who have always had it.

A dog is the only exercise machine you cannot decide to skip when you don't feel like it.

Quoting, like smoking, ... is a dirty habit to which I am devoted. But then ... I am a professor of English literature; it is an occupational hazard.

People who are genuinely involved in life, not just living a routine they've contrived to protect them from disaster, always seem to have more demanded of them than they can easily take on.