“There was something almost sacred in the self-sacrifice that I felt was required of me as a mother, caring for this child.”

“I experienced a devastating loss of self...But in the same moment, I also recognized that a profound commitment had taken root inside me, and it was beautiful. I felt a duty that ran deeper than any I had known before. I had lost my old self, but in return it felt like I gained a life imbued with new meaning.”

“If things are better for women there, it is due to a profound and enduring social consensus that life should be made livable based on who they are and not on an abstract moralistic notion of how they ought to be.”

“The seductive invitation of metamorphosis - of turning into something other — has continued to suffuse fantasies of identity; on the one hand holding out a way of escape from humanity, on the other annihilating the self.”

“DEAR MISS MANNERS:I a tired of being treated like a child. My father says it's because I am a child--I am twelve-and-a-half years old--but it still isn't fair. If I go into a store to buy something, nobody pays any attention to me, or if they do, it's to say, "Leave that alone," "Don't touch that," although I haven't done anything. My money is as good as anybody's, but because I am younger, they feel they can be mean to me. It happens to me at home, too. My mother's friend who comes over after dinner sometimes, who doesn't have any children of her own and doesn't know what's what, likes to say to me, "Shouldn't you be in bed by now,dear?" when she doesn't even know what my bedtime is supposed to be. Is there any way I can make these people stop?GENTLE READER:Growing up is the best revenge.”

“She remebered the angry hurt she had felt because his mother had abandoned him as a young boy,and she cried even harder.His mother should have drowned him!”

“Fairy tales are about money, marriage, and men. They are the maps and manuals that are passed down from mothers and grandmothers to help them survive.”