Now my mother, interestingly enough, was not a feminist in her own mind.

I've taught Sunday school, I've sung in the choir, I directed a choir.

No matter what I do, no matter how predictable I try to make my life, it will not be any more predictable than the rest of the world. Which is chaotic.

My first degree came years before my second. I had wanted to be a physicist, but I flunked calculus.

Other people, including me, have written books with main characters who were old and rich. Or old and brilliant. Old sages, old wizards, old rich people.

Even if a tamed wolf makes a good sheepdog, he will never understand how the sheep feel....You are most fortunate. For having been, as you thought, a coward, and helpless to fight - you know what that is like. You know what bitterness that feeling breeds - you know in your own heart what kind of evil it brings. And so you are most fit to fight it where it occurs.

Now my mother, interestingly enough, was not a feminist in her own mind.