What I often say to people who are quick to say I’m not a feminist is if you think you’re not a feminist, give it all back.

Like many another romance, the romance of the family turns sour when the money runs out. If we really cared about families, we would not let 'born again' patriarchs send up moral abstractions as a smokescreen for the scandal of American family economics.

When a family is free of abuse and oppression, it can be the place where we share our deepest secrets and stand the most exposed, a place where we learn to feel distinct without being better, - and sacrifice for others without losing ourselves.

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

Illness is the proving ground of friendship.

If knowledge is power, clandestine knowledge is power squared; it can be withheld, exchanged, and leveraged.

Why hope to live a long life if we're only going to fill it with self-absorption, body maintenance and image repair? When we die, do we want people to exclaim 'She looked ten years younger,' or do we want them to say 'She lived a great life'?