I was always inventing characters and making up stories.

To me, a feminist belongs in the same category as a humanist or an advocate for human rights. I don't see why someone who's a feminist should be thought of differently.

It takes as much discipline to be a mother and a wife as it does to do anything else.

I wouldn't characterize my work, however, as directly political.

You have to defend your honor. And your family.

Some girls are taught to be sexy.

In the end, my pursuit of the elusive New York State driver's license became about much more than a divorced woman's learning to drive for the first time.

I had some fears as a kid, but I was also relatively fearless. Maybe that's a result of living half the time in reality and the other half in fantasy.

I loved the atmosphere of the dance studios - the wooden floors, the big mirrors, everyone dressed in pink or black tights, the musicians accompanying us - and the feeling of ritual the classes had.

Sometimes I listen to songs by very smart writers who assume that the world is a civil place with certain formalities that people follow, but I don't see things that way. My own experience tells me that life is not like that.

Don't make a threat and then not do it.

How weird it was to drive streets I knew so well. What a different perspective.

When I was pregnant, I felt filled with life, and I felt really happy. I ate well, and I slept well. I felt much more useful than I'd ever felt before.

My intellect has always been more responsible than my emotions for how I respond to the world.

So you eat, you sleep, and then this wonderful child comes out, but you don't feel like you have any control over that process, over her, over her character and who she is.

There are no rules in fights with girls. Just hurting.

I think people are sexy when they have a sense of humor, when they are smart, when they have some sense of style, when they are kind, when they express their own opinions, when they are creative, when they have character.

I don't think gender is aesthetically defining for me.

Of course, sometimes when you write personally, you are also writing about society, obliquely reflecting topical issues, but not in a way that people would expect you to or in the way that someone trying to make a point would.

I was always inventing characters and making up stories.

If you have to fight a crowd of boys, it's best to go for the biggest one. That way you won't have to fight them all. The others will see that you mean business and you will win their respect.

Girls are crazy and mean. They don't fight fair.

I still consider myself a feminist.

My mother wanted me to understand that as a woman I could do pretty much whatever I wanted to, that I didn't have to use sex or sexuality to define myself.

Writing in other voices is almost Japanese in the sense that there's a certain formality there which allows me to sidestep the embarrassment of directly expressing to complete strangers the most intimate details of my life.

A lot of my writing is not terribly civilized.

Writing is always personal in some way but not always in a direct way.

I've been so blessed to have the opportunities that I've had.

People complain about my exclamation points, but I honestly think that's the way people think. I don't think people think in essays; it's one exclamation point to another.

The shortage of buyers, which the world is suffering from, is readily understood, not as due to people not wishing to obtain possession of goods, but as people being unwilling to part with something which might earn a regular income in exchange for those goods.

External pressure seems to produce internal unity.

To be in your children's memories tomorrow,You have to be in their lives today.

The great thing about Adele is if you put her on top volume, you actually sound like her while you're singing.

What can I say about the First World War, a war in which I served as an infantryman, a war I hated at the start and to which I never warmed as it proceeded?

The biggest thing, and what I told some of the partners in the summit, was me thanking them for their constant support with everything that I've been through the last couple years on and off the court.

May the New Year bring you courage to break your resolutions early. My own plan is to swear off every kind of virtue, so that I triumph even when I fall.

I believe that all the measures of the Government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

I am full of energy and life.

I have often wondered why I was never captain of the Lakers.

I spent a lot of my childhood not fitting in, in a lot of different ways.

Remember God's bounty in the year. String the pearls of His favor. Hide the dark parts, except so far as they are breaking out in light! Give this one day to thanks, to joy, to gratitude!

I like kids, but I don't expect to have any of my own. I'm 40 years old and spend most of my time working. I'd be a terrible mother.

I always thought I was doing something special with 'Lost Girl.' How that would be reflected or responded to by the fans, I hadn't really considered. That they are so loyal is amazing. We have such lovely fans.

Money in property is dead money. It doesn't help the country. It's funny how the U.K., Ireland and Spain are the most property-obsessed nations in Europe and yet are also the ones suffering the most.

The cross of Christ is the true ground and chief cause of Christian hope.

I remember seeing a movie with Jose Ferrer and Rosemary Clooney where they were husband and wife, and they got in bed, and he had on polka-dot pajamas and she had on striped pajamas, and when they got up the next morning he had on the striped pajamas and she had the polka dot pajamas, and that was considered racy at that time!

I've got a pretty close bond with everyone in my family. I've got a brother and a sister whom I'm very close to, and my parents have always been the world's best parents.

I'm not somebody who carries around a notepad and writes songs all day long. I don't imagine everything I think of is worth being in a song. So I tend to collect notes, and I set time aside to go to work and write songs.

I had wanted to be a regular character on a series for a while. 'The Brady Bunch' was an answer to a prayer.