When you rape, beat, maim, mutilate, burn, bury, and terrorize women, you destroy the essential life energy on the planet.

I think what's been true across the board is the universal patriarchy, the fear of women ever being born back into complete sexuality and life-force. This manifests itself in different cultural variances, but that's really what's going on everywhere.

What we all have to know is the struggle is long. It's long. It may not end in our lifetimes. But the struggle is what gives our lives meaning and purpose. I tell people to take time out of activism every day to take care of their bodies, to take care of their souls and spirits.

There were momentary visitations. I was a visitor, not an inhabitant. I think I say that at the beginning of the book: "I have made visits to the earth in my body, but it's always been as a visitor."

It is almost a guarantee that in the pursuit of security you will become more insecure. Inherent in the quest for security is its undoing.

Maybe being good isn't about getting rid of anything. Maybe being good has to do with living in the mess in the frailty in the failures in the flaws. Maybe what I tried to get rid of is the goodest part of me. Think Passion. Think Age. Think Round. Maybe good is about developing the capacity to live fully inside everything. Our body is our country, the only city, the only village, the only every we will ever know.

The minute someone tells you you have cancer, it's kind of like you die. You really do die. It's like you get that you're mortal.