Well, you know, I was raised by a 1970s feminist. My mom had a consciousness-raising group. I used to sit at the top of the stairs and listen to them.

If you focus all of your emotional passion on your children and you neglect the relationship that brought that family into existence... eventually, things can go really, really wrong.

Courage is impulsive; it is narcissism tempered with nihilism.

One of the darkest, deepest shames so many of us mothers feel nowadays is our fear that we are Bad Mothers, that we are failing our children and falling far short of our own ideals.

If a good mother is one who loves her child more than anyone else in the world, I am not a good mother. I am in fact a bad mother. I love my husband more than I love my children.

Roaring like a tiger turns some children into pianists who debut at Carnegie Hall but only crushes others. Coddling gives some the excuse to fail and others the chance to succeed.

You can take the babushka off the Jewish mother and dress her up in a pair of Seven jeans and Marc Jacobs sling-backs, but she's still going to expect a passel of grandkids.

In a perfect world I think we would microdose with LSD instead of giving teenagers Adderall. But I'd like to see it studied first.

For a couple of months there I was shrieking like a banshee.

Why is it that loving something provides such little protection from betrayal?

Let's all commit ourselves to the basic civility of minding our own business. Failing that, let's go back to a time when we were nasty and judgmental, but only behind one another's backs.

When you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there's no need at all to understand what's happening, because everything happens within you.

Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it.

Life happened. In all its banality, brutality, cruelty, unfairness. But also in its beauty, pleasures and delights. Life happened.

The critics love to get out their knives and dine on Coverdale. But the worse the criticism gets, the more successful I become.

Throughout his presidency, Clinton made a point of getting close - physically and emotionally - to the people whose problems his administration was working to solve.

In the most complete friendship there is always a little empty space, like the space in an egg.

I was, you know, a mess. I totally wanted to kill myself every day.

The Indian struggle is not anti-British, it is anti-exploitation, anti-foreign rule, not anti-foreigners.

I was hoping he would get up so I could hit him again and keep him down.

My skin is like a map of where my heart has been And I can't hide the marks It's not a negative thing.