You cannot throw words like heroism and sacrifice and nobility and honor away without abandoning the qualities they express.

What is asserted by a man is an opinion; what is asserted by a woman is opinionated. A woman with ideas and the ability to express them is something of a social embarrassment, like an unhousebroken pet.

The curse of the romantic is a greed for dreams, an intensity of expectation that, in the end, diminishes the reality.

Revelation is the marriage of knowing and feeling.

The New York voice reflects its diversity, its foreignness, and, inevitably, the sense of superiority New Yorkers feel or come to feel. It says, without saying, We Know.

Nobody objects to a woman being a good writer or sculptor or geneticist if at the same time she manages to be a good wife, a good mother, good-looking, good-tempered, well-dressed, well-groomed, and unaggressive.

performance is an act of faith.