“The way is a great mother, empty yet inexhaustible. She gives birth to worlds unending. Ever present within you, manifest her as you will.”

“I rang my mother to thank her for giving birth to me and she said, "What choice had I? You were in there, how else were you going to get out?”

“You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star.”

“The Tao doesn't take sides;it gives birth to both good and evil.The Master doesn't take sides;she welcomes both saints and sinners.The Tao is like a bellows:it is empty yet infinitely capable.The more you use it, the more it produces;the more you talk of it, the less you understand.Hold on to the center.”

“Over and over again, stories in women's magazines insist that women can know fulfillment only at the moment of giving birth to a child. They deny the years when she can no longer look forward to giving birth, even if she repeats the act over and over again. In the feminine mystique, there is no other way for a woman to dream of creation or of the future. There is no other way she can even dream about herself, except as her children's mother, her husband's wife.”

“I certainly never felt rejected because they had given me up. My parents knew nothing about my birth mother, yet always explained with certainty that she didn't "give me up" or "give me away" - she made a plan for me, the best one she could make under her circumstances, whatever those were.”