I'm clearly not frightened of flying because I fly all the time, but every once in a while I do, as we all do, think, What if this plane goes down? And I think, Well, if I'm holding the hand of the person sitting next to me, then I'm holding everyone's hand.

They're all qualities wrongly called feminine: attention to detail, patience, empathy. I don't have children, but I was raised as a female to have those qualities because they're perceived as feminine. Until men are raised with those qualities, too, they won't have the full circle of human qualities.

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. It has always been clear to me that the stories of each other's lives are our best textbooks.

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.

The dogma is that that dogma is a mistake.

Women must have seats at the table because peace is too crucial to be left only to the politicians or only to the male half of our world.

Law and justice are not always the same. When they aren't, destroying the law may be the first step toward changing it.