My good intentions are completely lethal.

It's a lifelong failing: she has never been prepared. But how can you have a sense of wonder if you're prepared for everything? Prepared for the sunset. Prepared for the moonrise. Prepared for the ice storm. What a flat existence that would be.

I myself discovered many authors through school reading lists and through school anthologies. The positives are: young readers can find the world opening up to them through books they study. The negatives may include bad experiences kids have - if they don't like the book or the teacher, or the way the book is taught.

We battled in secret, undeclared, and after a while I no longer fought back because I never won. The only defense was flight, invisibility.

I'm not an activist by nature. I am suspicious of Utopian thinking and equally suspicious of its alternate.

When a man is attacked in print, it's usually for saying what he says; when a woman is attacked in print, it's often for being who she is.

I felt white, drained of blood, cared for, purified. Peaceful.