We are still in various kinds of patriarchal systems. The very definition of patriarchy is that men control women as the means of reproduction, so the idea that a woman's main role is to have children often means society wants more workers, more soldiers. The idea that how many children we have should be controlled by the family, the church, the nation - by anyone but women themselves - is still very deep and very strong.

Feminism isn't whatever you want it to be.

We all have good instincts unless they're beaten out of us or shamed out of us in childhood.

You have no choice but to live in the present, if you're really being open to events and people as they come along.

Most of us are living out the unlived lives of our mothers, because they were not able to become the unique people they were born to be.

The dogma is that that dogma is a mistake.

Like so many women, I was living out the unlived life of my mother, so I wouldn't be her. But the price I paid was that I distanced myself internally. I wasn't as close to her then as I nowadays, in retrospect, wish I had been.