My inbox [showed me] how much pain there is in the world. I appreciated hearing from people, but it was hard to know I couldn't do anything.

Most women at some point or many points in their lives will have to deal with an unwanted advance and having the confidence to be "rude" and say no is an important skill to develop.

Sometimes people back themselves into corners where they think they have to make kind of an engraved-in-stone decision.

The human heart is a mysterious and sometimes dark place.

The sadness from reading letters that you know you can't help because it's a person who's in extremis and their problems are not soluble by an advice column.

I know this is awkward, but when you laugh after almost everything you say, it ends up undermining you.

I've never gotten a letter where I thought I knew the person. But I have heard from people who think they know the letter writer.