“One way to measure a particular doctor's openness and attitude toward women in general is simply to ask about the doctor's opinion of midwifery.”

“...the total number of pregnancies in which powerful and dangerous drugs are used is 60 percent, or nearly two-thirds of all births. It is rediculous to think that two-thirds of American women have such lousy uteruses that they must be whipped into shape with drugs in order to have babies.”

“Ina May Gaskin is the most important person in maternity care in North America, bar none.”

“Beyond the immediate risks to her health and the health of her baby, when a woman chooses c-section, she decreases the chance that she will be able to get pregnant again and increases the chance that if she does get pregnant, the pregnancy will occur outside the uterus, a situation that never results in a live baby and is life-threatening to the woman. Furthermore, the risk of having an unexplained stillbirth doubles when a woman has had a previous c-section.”

“I know of only one composer who measures up to Beethoven, and that is Bruckner.”

“I knew I was breaking about a dozen laws but I guess I had different attitudes to stuff like that since the war. Laws were for the stupid the immature the irresponsible. The inflexible and the narrow-minded. The prejudiced. The obsessive. The lazy and careless and selfish and spoilt. The violent.”

“I wonder if they realize how much I notice about them They probably haven't a clue because I never look at them or show the slightest interest. But I'm very aware of everything. I remember seeing an old film once where a father says to his son: "Son when your mouth's open you're not learning anything." If that's true then I'm well on the way to becoming the world's wisest woman.”