Many writers over the centuries simply do not have the reputations they deserve because they were female, and that is an act of suppression.

Widowers marry again because it makes their lives easier. Widows often don't, because it makes their lives harder. [p. 61]

We sometimes imagine we want what we don't really want.

Like countless first-year medical students, immersed in the symptoms of one disease after another, I am alert to the tingles and pangs, the throbs and quivers of my mortal body, each one of which is potentially a sign of the end.

Reading is a private pursuit; one that takes place behind closed doors.

Ture stories can't be told forward, only backward. We invent them from the vantage point of an ever-changing present and tell ourselves how they unfolded.

The logic: Reading is a private pursuit, one that often takes place behind closed doors. A young lady might retreat with a book, might even take it into her boudoir, and there, reclining on here silken sheets, imbibing the thrills and chills manufactured by writerly quills, one of her hands, one not absolutely needed to grip the little volume, might wander. The fear, in short, as one-handed reading. [p. 146]