Illness is the proving ground of friendship.

If family violence teaches children that might makes right at home, how will we hope to cure the futile impulse to solve worldly conflicts with force?

I feel about mothers the way I feel about dimples: because I do not have one myself, I notice everyone who does.

The risk for a woman who considers her helpless children her "job" is that the children's growth toward self-sufficiency may be experienced as a refutation of the mother's indispensability, and she may unconsciously sabotage their growth as a result.

Over the years, I've found that I either live life or write about it. I can't seem to do both simultaneously - I have to do it sequentially. When I write incessantly, I lose touch with the issues and passions that fuel the work. But when I get too involved in organizations or movement endeavors, I almost forget that I'm a writer. It's a constant struggle to find a balance between these two worlds - the solitary writing life and the life of a social justice activist.

I want to visit Memory Lane, I don't want to live there.

Work-family conflicts - the trade-offs of your money or your life, your job or your child - would not be forced upon women with such sanguine disregard if men experienced the same career stalls caused by the-buck-stops-here responsibility for children.