The literature of the emperor penguin is as forbidding, as inaccessible, as the frozen heart of Antarctica itself. Its beauties may be unearthly, but they are not for us.

In general she had found that the main drawback in being a man was that conversations were less interesting.

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings.

But need alone is not enough to set power free: there must be knowledge.

You sit down and you do it, and you do it, and you do it, until you have learned to do it.

A person who believes, as she did, that things fit: that there is a whole of which one is a part, and that in being a part one is whole: such a person has no desire whatever, at any time, to play God. Only those who have denied their being yearn to play at it.

If your voice is heard by more people because you've earned some kind of name and fame, your silence on an issue of urgent moral importance is even more of a betrayal. Privilege is obligation.