As a profession, freelance writing is notoriously insecure. That's the first argument in its favor. For many reasons, a few of them rational, the thought of knowing exactly what next year's accomplishments, routine, income, and vacation will be - or even what time I have to get up tomorrow morning - has always depressed me.

... we've allowed a youth-centered culture to leave us so estranged from our future selves that, when asked about the years beyondfifty, sixty, or seventy--all part of the average human life span providing we can escape hunger, violence, and other epidemics--many people can see only a blank screen, or one on which they project fear of disease and democracy.

Racism is not real, it's made up, it's cruel, it can be stopped.

During years of working for a living, I have experienced much of the legal and social discrimination reserved for women in this country, I have been refused service in public restaurants, ordered out of public gathering places and turned away from apartment rentals. All for the clearly stated, sole reason that I am a woman.

Women with body image or eating disorders are not a special category; [they’re] just more extreme in their response to a culture that emphasizes thinness and impossible standards of appearance for women instead of individuality and health.

... patriarchy creates megapatterns that affect us all--even as we forge different individual choices within them--just as do themegapatterns of nationalism or racism.

I can't tell the difference between my work life and my private life - it's all the same to me.