Pain is always emotional. Fear and depression keep constant company with chronic hurting.

No matter how brilliant or accomplished they are, there is something emasculating for men in being pitted against a woman. It is even more true in creative fields already considered to be "squishy" and feminine, and it's a big problem because great women have been left off the record.

Every one of us is prone to implicit sexual prejudices, including women.

All human states are organic brain states - happiness, sadness, fear, lust, dreaming, doing math problems and writing novels - and our brains are not static.

We lose ourselves in stories; that's the beauty of literary art.

Dreaming is another form of thinking, more concrete, more economical, more visual, and often more emotional than the thoughts of the day, but a thinking through of the day, nevertheless.

Bedtime rituals for children ease the way to the elsewhere of slumber - teeth brushing and pajamas, the voice of a parent reading, the feel and smell of the old blanket or toy, the nightlight glowing in a corner.