I used to anticipate my childhood birthday parties as if each were an annual coronation. Like most kids, I loved sitting at the head of the table with a crown on my head.

If the Richter scale could measure human calamities, the loss of a child would register a ten.

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.

It's smart to be friends with one's sex partner but dumb to have sex with one's friends.

I find it profoundly symbolic that I am appearing before a committee of fifteen men who will report to a legislative body of one hundred men because of a decision handed down by a court comprised of nine men--on an issue that affects millions of women.... I have the feeling that if men could get pregnant, we wouldn't be struggling for this legislation. If men could get pregnant, maternity benefits would be as sacrosanct as the G.I. Bill.

Mothers remember a child's first words, and quote them in tones usually reserved for Byron.

A toy has no gender and no idea of whether a girl or boy is playing with it.