I think we spend a lot of time denying our mothers. We understand other women earlier than we understand our mothers because we're trying so hard to say, "I'm not going to be like my mother" that we blame her for her condition. If we didn't blame her for her condition, we would have to admit that it could happen to us, too. I spent a long time doing that, thinking that my mother's problems were uniquely her fault.

I don't know if fury can compete with necessity as the mother of invention, but I recommend it.

Karla Jay's intimate account of life in the early years of feminism and gay liberation is as irresistible as a novel, but as credible, humorous, and unexpected as real life.

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.

Many ideas have been transformed by adding one crucial adjective-women's bank, women's music, women's studies, women's caucus. That adjective did more than change a phrase. It implied a lot of new content: child care, flexible work hours, new standards of creditworthiness, new symbolism, new lyrics.

Elephants are so wise and so funny and so endangered and so intelligent. I just think there is a lot to learn from them.

I would say that reproductive freedom comes first, then violence and economics.