“We think of women at every age: while still children, we fondle with a naïve sensuality the breasts of those grown-up girls kissing us and cuddling us in their arms; at the age of ten, we dream of love; at fifteen, love comes along; at sixty, it is still with us, and if dead men in their tombs have any thought in their heads, it is how to make their way underground to the nearby grave, lift the shroud of the dear departed women, and mingle with her in her sleep”

“Much of the prejudice against women is stored at an unconscious level. Many of those with the most punishing attitudes towards passionate women -and free women are passionate women – consider themselves social liberals, even feminists. Women’s rights seem to them to be of obvious importance, but what is not obvious to them is how much they conspire to keep the lid on female power. Female power transcends what are thought of as “woman’s issues”. Female power involves women taking part in the conversation either in the public arena or the dinner table, and having the same emotional space in which to do so as men. It means women not having to fear punishment of any kind. It means women not having to worry that they will be considered “unfeminine” if they speak up. It means women really coming out to play and getting support for their playing from men as well as women.Until this is accomplished, political, economic and reproductive freedom will still not be enough. We will not be free until we can speak our minds and our hearts without having to worry that men will crucify us, women will crucify us, the press will crucify us, or our children will be ashamed… Women are still in emotional bondage as long as we feel we have to make a choice between being heard and being loved.”

“If those we love visit us when we dream, those who torment us almost always visit us when we're still awake.”

“The youngest, aged twelve, could not conceal her disappointment, and turned away, feeling as so many of us have felt when we discover that our idols are very extraordinary men and women.”

“I should have known you'd side with them. It's some sort of of male bonding thing to think women aren't capable of running their own lives."He nuzzled the top of her head with his chin. "It's ego and sheer desperation. We have to keep you thinking we're the superior species.""News flash, Jack - no women on the face of earth believes that anymore."He trailed kisses down her cheek. "But men don't know women know that. We still live in our fantasy world, so don't muck it up for us.”

“Oh, I know, I know, she was a sweet girl, a simple country girl; everyone told me that, both then and since. But I could not forgive her animal dumbness - worse, her rank sensuality, easy as any cow's, and like her dumpling breasts, quite irresistable to men - while those of us whom God has made to think and feel, who are strung out like harps along the wires of our own nature, why, we are rarer than music and must content ourselves with smaller audiences.”