Throughout history, fairly arbitrary lines drawn on maps have determined who prospers and who needs, who eats and who starves, who attacks and who is attacked, who lives long and who dies young. Oh, we have been slaves to those lines for so long.

The solution to violence in America is the acceptance of reality

Persistence only proves persistence-it does not prove love. The fact that a romantic pursuer is relentless doesn't mean you are special-it means he is troubled.

It is understandable that the perspectives of men and women on safety are so different - men and women live in different worlds. [...] At core, men are afraid women will laugh at them, while at core, women are afraid men will kill them.

Every day people engaged in the clever defiance of their own intuition become, in midthought, victims of violence and accidents. So when we wonder why we are victims so often, the answer is clear: It is because we are so good at it.

And why do we worship hindsight (as in the news media's constant rehash of the day, the week, the year) and yet distrust foresight, which actually might make a difference in our lives?

"No" is a word that must never be negotiated, because the person who chooses not to hear it is trying to control you... Declining to hear "no" is a signal that someone is either seeking control or refusing to relinquish it.