One cannot make up stories; one can only retell in new ways the stories one has already heard.

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

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.

Why do long marriages occasionally endow their inhabitants with a rare kind of equilibrium otherwise almost unknown in human relations? My guess is that the value of the moment has at last overshadowed the long history of resentments, betrayals, and boredom.

Power consists to a large extent in deciding what stories will be told.

Normal is absolutely my least favorite word.

You can flush my ashes down the toilet, for all I care.