Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in.

There are some things that are so unforgivable that they make other things easily forgivable.

Her blog was doing well, with thousands of unique visitors each month, and she was earning good speaking fees, and she had a fellowship at Princeton and a relationship with Blaine - "You are the absolute love of my life," he'd written in her last birthday card - and yet there was cement in her soul. It had been there for a while, an early morning disease of fatigue, shapeless desires, brief imaginary glints of other lives she could be living, that over the months melded into a piercing homesickness.

Racism should never have happened and so you don't get a cookie for reducing it.

I have my father's lopsided mouth. When I smile, my lips slope to one side. My doctor sister calls it my cerebral palsy mouth. I am very much a daddy's girl, and even though I would rather my smile wasn't crooked, there is something moving for me about having a mouth exactly like my father's.

The only reason race matters is because of racism.

This is our world, although the people who drew this map decided to put their own land on top of ours. There is no top or bottom, you see.