I think if a woman is very happy with herself and at ease with her choices, it goes a long way toward making other people feel at ease with her.

Most women at retirement have significantly less money than men, and they still get paid less than men. I'm sure that in my reptile brain I'm quite conscious of this.

Adultery is like, here's the way it is, and here's exactly what you're supposed to do. It's like cheating at Monopoly. For me, it just doesn't apply to human relations. I mean, I use the word sometimes because it's fair and everybody knows what it means, but I find it a very irritating word.

When you approach the second half of your life, you start to unconsciously consider what you're passing on. As a writer, that's obviously part of what you're doing. And as a teacher, that's another way of passing on information, history, or whatever you have.

I focus more on the spiritual or psychic gains.

The best definition I've heard is that guilt is about what you've done, shame is about who you are. If something's out of my control, I don't feel shame about it, because what could I have done? If you're guilty, you can at least try to atone for it or make it better or not do it again. If it's who you are, you can't do much about it except change yourself, and that's pretty hard.

I remember the time I said, 'I don't think you love yourself. You need to learn to love yourself.'