As soon as you have a language that has a past tense and a future tense you're going to say, 'Where did we come from, what happens next?' The ability to remember the past helps us plan the future.

Tell what is yours to tell. Let others tell what is theirs.

Women are human beings, and human beings are a very mixed lot. I've always been against the idea that women were Victorian angels, that they could do no wrong. I've always thought it was horseshit and does nobody any good. Remember, Lizzie Borden got off largely because the cultural agenda had convinced people that women were morally superior to men, so Lizzie Borden was "incapable" of taking the ax and giving her mother 40 whacks.

It was like being in an elevator cut loose at the top. Falling, falling, and not knowing when you will hit.

I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. I repeat my former name; remind myself of what I once could do, how others saw me. I want to steal something.

A hot wind was blowing around my head, the strands of my hair lifting and swirling in it, like ink spilled in water.

A voice is a human gift; it should be cherished and used, to utter fully human speech as possible. Powerlessness and silence go together.