The actual American childhood is less Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney than Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe.

There is no other closeness in human life like the closeness between a mother and her baby - chronologically, physically, and spiritually they are just a few heartbeats away from being the same person.

Writers often write their best when they are feeling their worst

Whenever there was a crisis, I found a man to help me take the edge off the feelings of helplessness and pain.

A fierce literary woman with a penchant for married men, Margaret Fuller was ultimately torn between motherhood and her final career as a political reporter.

There is no such thing as expecting too much.

You mustn’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.