Children who have been very sadistically abused over the long-term are able to dissociate, some of them are able to dissociate as a way of surviving and inventing someone to whom this doesn't happen. And so therefore, they invent within themselves different personalities who have life histories of their own. Many people invent an opposite gender personality as well.

I have always employed humor, and I think it's absolutely crucial that we do because, among other things, humor is the only free emotion.

Being able to support oneself allows one to choose a marriage out of love and not just economic dependence. It also allows one to risk that marriage.

Probably those three things affect the most people: reproductive freedom, freedom from violence, and democratic families. But there may well be someone sitting at this table who has a great idea to do something else that wouldn't come under those umbrellas and that would really be great, and make all kinds of change.

In my own mind, I am still a fat brunette from Toledo, and I always will be.

we are the women our parents warned us against, and we are proud

It would help not to treat age as if it were any less of a pleasure than it was when we were six and saying, 'I'm six and a half.' You know, we could be saying, 'I'm fifty and a half' and say it with joy. Each age is different and has different discoveries and pleasures.