As the mother of a son, I do not accept that alienation from me is necessary for his discovery of himself. As a woman, I will not cooperate in demeaning womanly things so that he can be proud to be a man. I like to think the women in my son's future are counting on me.

When the president of the United States flicks the switch to light up the Christmas tree on the White House lawn, that house ceases to be an American symbol; it becomes a Christian symbol.

Lifestyles and sex roles are passed from parents to children as inexorably as blue eyes or small feet.

Control is a big issue when you're sick. It's the first thing you lose - other losses come later.

It angers me that sick people have to wait for everything and everybody - doctors, nurses, callbacks, lab results, prescriptions, medications, technicians, treatment rooms. If illness is the embodiment of powerlessness, which, believe me, is true, then waiting is its temporal incarnation.

When men are oppressed, it's a tragedy. When women are oppressed, it's tradition.

If the family were a fruit, it would be an orange, a circle of sections, held together but separable - each segment distinct.