We need to unlearn some of our respect for education, since it has undermined our respect for ourselves.

[Erotica] contains the idea of love, positive choice, and the yearning for a particular person.

As an activist, you do find yourself directed more toward public action. But I've always tried to use stories from my own life in my writing for instance. It has always been clear to me that the stories of each other's lives are our best textbooks. Every social justice movement that I know of has come out of people sitting in small groups, telling their life stories, and discovering that other people have shared similar experiences. So, if we've shared many experiences, then it probably has something to do with power or politics, and if we unify and act together, then we can make a change.

During the first suffragist wave in this nation, women were possessions, like a table or a chair. So violence toward them was quite condoned. The attitude has diminished, but it's still there.

I will no longer be referred to as Miss Steinem of Ms. magazine.

... the art of politics is to be ahead of your time--about six months will do it. Any more than that, and people forget you were there.

We have to imagine change before we can begin to move toward it.