It took me years to learn to sit at my desk for more than two minutes at a time, to put up with the solitude and the terror of failure, and the godawful silence and the white paper.

Though my friends envied me because I always seemed so cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrified of practically everything.

Flesh is merely a lesson. We learn it & pass on.

Women in America read 'lifestyle' pages which are really glorifications of shopping. They teach us we must veil ourselves in make-up to be loved. And we willingly take the veil, thinking ourselves freed by it. Make-up is no more optional for us than the veil is for Arab women: it is our Western version of the chador.

I had been a feminist all my life, but the big problem was how to make your feminism jibe with you unappeasable hunger for male bodies.

we all carry the Houses of our Youth inside, and our Parents, too, grown small enough to fit within our Hearts.

We all parent the best we can. Being human, we're ambivalent. We want perfection for our babies, but we also need sleep.