When you handle books all day long, every new one is a friend and a temptation.

The problem is simply finding the right person. Ask Plato. Just make sure she finishes your thoughts and you finish hers. That's all you need.

The heart does not go backward. Only the mind.

In the end, I always act from the heart, even if I also value reason and tradition. I wish I could explain why, but I don't know.

It's a shame for women's history to be all about men--first boys, then other boys, then men men men. It reminds me of the way our school history textbooks were all about wars and elections, one war after another, with the dull periods of peace skimmed over whenever they occurred. (Our teachers deplored this and added extra units about social history and protest movements, but that was still the message of the books.)

My publishers are wonderful because they have let me write what I wanted to. They're wise enough to know that, with any author who's not simply writing formulas - who's trying to create something new - pressuring them to do something for market purposes almost always backfires. I can't imagine working under those circumstances, actually.

If there is any good in life, in history, in my own past, I invoke it now. I invoke it with all the passion with which I have lived.