Everyone needs something from me.

I can never be who I was. I can simply watch her with sympathy, understanding, and some measure of awe. There she goes, backpack on, headed for the subway or the airport. She did her best with her eyeliner. She learned a new word she wants to try out on you. She is ambling along. She is looking for it.

The end never comes when you think it will. It's always ten steps past the worst moment, then a weird turn to the left.

There is nothing gutsier to me than a person announcing that their story is one that deserves to be told, especially if that person is a woman. As hard as we have worked and as far as we have come, there are still so many forces conspiring to tell women that our concerns are petty, our opinions aren’t needed, that we lack the gravitas necessary for our stories to matter. That personal writing by women is no more than an exercise in vanity and that we should appreciate this new world for women, sit down, and shut up.

I'll start by saying that "Fifty Shades of Grey:" It's like I don't have. an elicit confused relationship to my sexuality. So I don't need a book like that.

Of course you don't want anybody to feel shame for their sexuality. But you also want to make it clear that a loud, a loud and proud approach to your sexuality at a young age isn't necessary to be a fully integrated person.

For straight, hetero people it's very easy to unintentionally say something that might not honor people's identities fully, and Grace Dunham is a really amazing educational resource.