If one is going to change things, one has to make a fuss and catch the eye of the world.

Today, what most people live in, or with, is the less-than-nuclear family. Working fathers are absent from home during most of the day, the children are schooled outside it, and practically all women who work for money must go outside to earn their living.

Sex cannot be contained within a definition of physical pleasure, it cannot be understood as merely itself for it has stood for too long as a profound connection between human beings.

we expect definitions to tell us not only what is, but what to do about it; to show us how the world fits together and how its different parts connect and work. ... A label is the first step toward action.

Power is the ability not to have to please.

Mistrust must be acted on, and effective action by the ruled is not solitary and singular, but joint and repeated.

Myth, legend, and ritual ... function to maintain a status quo. That makes them singularly bad in coping with change, indeed counterproductive, for change is the enemy of myth.