It's useful to know how much society's holding you back. My mother would talk about how she was told by the head of her art school that she was the best painter, but that she wouldn't get the biggest prize because she would waste her talent by having children. I think we have to get honest with girls about how they can expect the world to block them, and we have to prepare girls, and ourselves, to break through those blocks.

Unhappiness is our element. We come to believe we can't function without it.

Being a daughter is only half the equation; bearing one is the other.

I knew I was in England by the smell.

Because I loved myself, I was loved.

Pleasure is terrifying because it breaks down the boundaries between people. Embracing passion means living with fear.

As women got little crumbs of power, men began to act paranoid - as if we'd disabled them utterly. Do all women have to keep silent for men to speak? Do all women have to be legless for men to walk?