If you know you can do it - if you can already chart every day in your future - then why bother? Choose to do something you have more trouble imagining. Take a chance.

I personally translated the word 'vendetta' as Italian for 'What do you mean, "you want to see other women"?

I am constantly surprised that the simple word 'feminism' raises more eyebrows and initiates more sad-faced head-shaking than any elaborate stream of invective I have ever leveled at either the I.R.S. or the D.M.V.

Anger can offer a sense of indignity to replace a sense of shame, and offer a voice-raised above others-which can finally be heard. Those voices are most effective when they are raised in unison, when they have mercy as well as anger behind them, and when, instead of roaring at the anger of old pain, they sing about the glorious possibilities of a future where anger has a smaller house than hope.

Interestingly, anger and lust are also elusive states once they have passed. Trying to recall why you were angry about something when you've calmed down is like trying to remember why you were in love with someone who no longer attracts you: the initial impulse triggering the emotion is impossible to recapture.

Having a lean and hungry look was frowned upon in my Italian neighborhood where a girl was considered too skinny if she could make her knees touch.

If you know you can do it - if you can already chart every day in your future - then why bother? Choose to do something you have more trouble imagining. Take a chance.