Shall I tell you something I've been noticing? The mistrust this society has for women. All kinds of experts and officials are terrified because so many women are working. They really think that women have to be coerced into having babies and raising kids.

The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.

We're herded into schools and terrified into behaving. Taught how we're supposed to pretend to be, taught to parrot all kinds of nonsense at the flick of a switch, taught to keep our heads down and our elbows in and shut off our minds and shut off our sex. We learn we can't even piss when we have to. That's how we learn to be plastic and dumb.

When I work I am pure as an angel tiger and clear is my eye and hot my brain and silent all the whining grunting piglets of the appetites.

Everything you study, everything you learn, makes you a better writer, because you have more understanding of how things work.

My grandmother was very important to me. She gave me my religious education. She gave me a sense of the female side of Judaism, of the rich store of stories and legends of the women of the schtetl.

If you want to be listened to, you should put in time listening.