“As I set out each day, I felt like a young child again. One who hadn't yet learned the rules of manmade time; the rules of clocks and calendars, of weekdays and weekends. Except the primitive markers of day and night, time lay ahead of me in a continuous, undefined mass.”

“Going back to school is like going back in time. Immediately, for better or for worse, you must give up a little piece of your autonomy in order to become part of the group. And every group, of course, has its hierarchies and rules- spoken and unspoken. It is like learning to live once again in a family- which, of course, is the setting where all learning begins.”

“Maybe it was I who needed to learn how to be quiet instead of cluttering the moment with too many words.”

“And who's to say that just because something lasts only a short time, it has little value?”

“Life is like that I thought, as I turned the corner to my building. Freedom has its danger as well as its joys. And the sooner we learn to get up after a fall, the better off will be.”

“His presence made me feel self-concious: of my appearance, of the way I was sitting, of my movements and gestures...It was the behavior of a woman reacting to a man who attracts her.”

“Women would be better off when they no longer needed men more than they needed their own independent identities...How long a time it took me after my divorce to understand that being alone is not the same as being lonely.”