Each person's life is lived as a series of conversations.

Part of the reason images of women in positions of authority are marked by their gender is that the very notion of authority is associated with maleness.

We all know we are unique individuals, but we tend to see others as representatives of groups.

any criticism heard secondhand sounds worse than it would face to face. Words spoken out of our presence strike us as more powerful, just as people we know only by reputation seem larger than life.

It's our tendency to approach every problem as if it were a fight between two sides. We see it in headlines that are always using metaphors for war. It's a general atmosphere of animosity and contention that has taken over our public discourse.

Life is a matter of dealing with other people, in little matters and cataclysmic ones, and that means a series of conversations.

The Pavlovian view of women voters - plug the words in, and they will respond - sends a chill down my spine because it sounds like an adaptation of something I have written about communication between the sexes: When a woman tells a man about a problem, she doesn't want him to fix it; she just wants him to listen and let her know he understands. But there's a difference between a private conversation and a presidential election, between what we want from our leaders.