“The feminist challenge was sweeping: it embraced education andoccupation, together with legal, political, and social status. It evendared broach the subject of equality in personal, and especiallymatrimonial, relationships. Such assertiveness was more unsettlingthan the racial threat because it was more intimate and immediate:few white men lived with blacks, but most lived with women.”

“We know they've got food here," Loran said ever practical. "What more do we need?" "Well, as much as I heartily approve of food," Jason replied, glancing over at Loran. "I wouldn't say no to the odd cellium mine or cache of alien tech." "You're picking up some alien tech?" Tennant asked excitedly, practically bouncing at the prospect. "Are there any weapons?" "No, of course not," Jason snapped in exasperation. "I'm not picking up anything. But, ahh... I'll be sure to keep running that particular scan - the alien weapon scan," he added hurriedly in appeasement as Tennant's face dropped.”

“The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, person and family history, belief systems, and often nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you.”

“Feminist effort to end patriarchal domination should be of primary concern precisely because it insists on the eradication of exploitation and oppression in the family context and in all other intimate relationships. It is that political movement which most radically addresses the person – the personal – citing the need for the transformation of self, of relationships, so that we might be better able to act in a revolutionary manner, challenging and resisting domination, transforming the world outside the self.”

“Men are visually aroused by women's bodies and less sensitive to their arousal by women's personalities because they are trained early into that response, while women are less visually aroused and more emotionally aroused because that is their training. This asymmetry in sexual education maintains men's power in the myth: They look at women's bodies, evaluate, move on; their own bodies are not looked at, evaluated, and taken or passed over. But there is no "rock called gender" responsible for that; it can change so that real mutuality--an equal gaze, equal vulnerability, equal desire--brings heterosexual men and women together.”

“Reading is an escape, an education, a delving into the brain of another human being on such an intimate level that every nuance of thought, every snapping of synapse, every slippery desire of the author is laid open before you like, well, a book.”

“...a really good friend, the kind of friend who - when they were together both of them were more able to be who they really were.”