What I think the political correctness debate is really about is the power to be able to define. The definers want the power to name. And the defined are now taking that power away from them.

To get to a place where you could love anything you chose--not to need permission for desire--well now _that_ was freedom.

She had been looking all along for a friend, and it took her a while to discover that a lover was not a comrade and could never be - for a woman. And that no one would ever be that version of herself which she sought to reach out to and touch with an ungloved hand. There was only her own mood and whim, and if that was all there was, she decided to turn the naked hand toward it, discover it and let others become as intimate with their own selves as she was.

Long before I was a success, my parents made me feel like I could be one.

The peace I am thinking of is the dance of an open mind when it engages another equally open one.

What's interesting about writing is the invention, the creative thing. Writing about myself is a yawn.

Schools must stop being holding pens to keep energetic young people off the job market and off the streets. We stretch puberty out a long, long time.