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.

I have a problem about being nearly sixty: I keep waking up in the morning and thinking I'm thirty-one.

This is the power of the powerful to define, to structure, to say, 'This is the way the world works.' It's enormous power. Among the powers of the weak, I think the first one is the power not to believe the powerful.

Whatever class and race divergences exist, top cats are tom cats.

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 are in a double bind. We are expected to feel inferior not only as women, but because we are old.

The greatest barrier to women's advance in the public world of action has been their acquiescence in the idea that they don't belong out there.