The loss of a sexual life is one of the worst things about getting really old. The worst thing.

I was addicted to amphetamines at the time I got busted, but I tend to think I was on a determined, self-destruct course that had little to do with the effect of Benzedrine.

Prison experience puts distance between me and any person who hasn't been there, done that.

I was already a wreck when I went in, and prison nearly destroyed what little was left of me. I was worse when I came out than I was when I went in, and was not positively changed in any way.

One of the principle things life has taught me is that we always have a choice. When we say we "can't," we usually mean we're just not willing to pay the price.

My published works are concrete evidence that I exist.

I had a naïve idea that if I could tell the story, people would be outraged and do something about conditions in the jails.

My husband regarded my prison past as a dirty secret and never asked me one single question about it. But what I had experienced and witnessed was eating at me and I needed to "tell somebody."

My friends in prison were mostly women more like myself: not historical figures who I did not relate to as peers, but hookers and addicts.

I don't believe anyone can go through the prison experience without being changed by it. The experience becomes part of your identity forever.

I can say now is that sneaking up on people is a major delight in my old age, but it always has been. A desire, even a need, to shock.

Before you take anything away, you must have something better to put in its place.

Impermanence is not something to be afraid of. It's the evolution, a never-ending horizon.

The church and religion has lost tremendous power and positive power.

That's how we build the economy of the future. An economy with more jobs and less debt, we root it in fairness. We grow it with opportunity. And we build it together.

I have done my duty by the laws of my people and I am sorry my people were led this time by men who were not soldiers and that crimes were committed of which I had no knowledge.

Your reason is your friend. It defends the island of your awareness. But you don't want your reason to rule everything.

I felt a positive yearning toward one bush this afternoon. There was a match found for me at last. I fell in love with a shrub oak.

While the Taliban connives with foreign terrorists, the Afghan people suffer from poverty, drought and hunger.

Sure, you can mix the flour, baking soda, salt, shortening, and the whole nine yards, but why wouldn't you just pull out a box of Bisquick?

Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.