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.

Friendships aren't perfect and yet they are very precious. For me, not expecting perfection all in one place was a great release.

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.

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

Apathy is the self-defense of the powerless.

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

Much is made of the accelerating brutality of young people's crimes, but rarely does our concern for dangerous children translateinto concern for children in danger. We fail to make the connection between the use of force on children themselves, and violent antisocial behavior, or the connection between watching father batter mother and the child deducing a link between violence and masculinity.