If the family were a fruit, it would be an orange, a circle of sections, held together but separable - each segment distinct.

If family violence teaches children that might makes right at home, how will we hope to cure the futile impulse to solve worldly conflicts with force?

We need old friends to help us grow old and new friends to help us stay young.

We mothers are learning to mark our mothering success by our daughters' lengthening flight.

Boys don't make passes at female smart asses.

A toy has no gender and no idea of whether a girl or boy is playing with it.

If the family were a boat, it would be a canoe that makes no progress unless everyone paddles.

If knowledge is power, clandestine knowledge is power squared; it can be withheld, exchanged, and leveraged.

Friends can be said to "fall in like" with as profound a thud as romantic partners fall in love.

No labourer in the world is expected to work for room, board, and love -except the housewife.

I used to anticipate my childhood birthday parties as if each were an annual coronation. Like most kids, I loved sitting at the head of the table with a crown on my head.

History is the hallmark of humanity.

Dreams give purpose to one’s life. If you do not wish anything better for yourself or for your loved ones, then life loses meaning.

When you have nothing but love, you have everything. This means you must live as if you have nothing to hide, nothing to prove and nothing to lose.

You shouldn't get to live in society and give nothing back. People complain about their taxes, yet they do nothing for the community. That makes me furious.

To play with a band all of the time, just about nightly, was good for me because I wrote lots of arrangements and I got a lot of my transposition and chords ironed out.

I think, if you want to grow a novelist, for that person to have a lot of boring time trying to entertain themselves is very important.

I was an accidental actor. I was never formally trained.

Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others.