The issue is privacy. Why is the decision by a woman to sleep with a man she has just met in a bar a private one, and the decision to sleep with the same man for $100 subject to criminal penalties?

The problem... is emblematic of what hasn't changed during the equal opportunity revolution of the last 20 years. Doors opened; opportunities evolved. Law, institutions, corporations moved forward. But many minds did not.

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

The victim mentality may be the last uncomplicated thing about life in America.

There is a lot of talk now about metal detectors and gun control. Both are good things. But they are no more a solution than forks and spoons are a solution to world hunger.

There is little premium in poetry in a world that thinks of Pound and Whitman as a weight and a sampler, not an Ezra, a Walt, a thing of beauty, a joy forever.

There is only room in the lifeboat of your life for one, and you always choose yourself, and turn your parents into whatever it takes to keep you afloat.

There is something so settled and stodgy about turning a great romance into next of kin on an emergency room form, and something so soothing and special, too.

Women who marry early are often overly enamored of the kind of man who looks great in wedding pictures and passes the maid of honor his telephone number.

Somewhere between a third and a quarter of all people living in America today were born between 1946 and 1965 and if you think you're tired of hearing about us, you should try being one of us.

Here is the real domino theory - gay man to gay man, bisexual man to straight woman, addict mother to newborn baby, they all fall down and someday it will come to you.

All parents should be aware that when they mock or curse gay people, they may be mocking or cursing their own child.

America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security.

But it's important, while we are supporting lessons in respecting others, to remember that many of our youngest kids need to learn to respect themselves. You learn your worth from the way you are treated.

Even as we enumerate their shortcomings, the rigor of raising children ourselves makes clear to us our mothers' incredible strength. We fear both. If they are not strong, who will protect us? If they are not imperfect, how can we equal them?