A family stitched together with love seldom unravels.

Boys don't make passes at female smart asses.

Apathy is the self-defense of the powerless.

I didn't anticipate the primal quality of my pleasure, the raw physicality of it, the way my whole body leaps forward when I see my grandsons after a few days' absence.

Friends seem to be like aspirin; we don't really know why they make a sick person feel better, but they do.

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

The all American work ethic, destructive enough by itself, also packs a gender double standard that strip-mines the natural resources of both parents. It has taught us that as their earnings and success increase, men become "more manly," while women become "less feminine." This perverse cultural dynamic gives fathers an incentive to stay away from their families and kill themselves at work, while coercing mothers to limit their career commitment, which in turn limits their wages and shortchanges their families.