My husband regarded my prison past as a dirty secret and never asked me one single question about it. But what I had experienced and witnessed was eating at me and I needed to "tell somebody."

The fact that educated white women automatically assume that we have similar backgrounds annoys me. We don't. I feel like I'm in a certain kind of drag.

I can say now is that sneaking up on people is a major delight in my old age, but it always has been. A desire, even a need, to shock.

A crisis of confidence is so common that it should be considered a universal part of the adoption process.

My published works are concrete evidence that I exist.

One of the principle things life has taught me is that we always have a choice. When we say we "can't," we usually mean we're just not willing to pay the price.

At eighty-one, health club-lusting is as close as I'll ever come to getting laid again.