The misogyny that shapes every aspect of our civilization is the institutionalized form of male fear and hatred of what they have denied and therefore cannot know, cannot share: that wild country, the being of women.

Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.

there are times when you have to speak because silence is betrayal.

At this point, realism is perhaps the least adequate means of understanding or portraying the incredible realities of our existence.

Sci-fi uses the images that sf - starting with H.G. Wells - made familiar: space travel, aliens, galactic wars and federations, time machines, et cetera, taking them literally, not caring if they are possible or even plausible. It has no interest in or relation to real science or technology. It's fantasy in space suits. Spectacle. Wizards with lasers. Kids with ray guns. I've written both, but I have to say I respect science fiction enough that I wince when people call it sci-fi.

Claude Levi-Strauss has been a great source of fruitful irritation to my mind.

As a kitten does what all other kittens do, so a child wants to do what other children do, with a wanting that is as powerful as it is mindless. Since we human beings have to learn what we do, we have to start out that way, but human mindfulness begins where that wish to be the same leaves off.