“Who knew why they waited, I thought, understanding that I, too, had it in me to wait. To expect change to come from outside, to concentrate on the task of meeting it, waiting to meet it, rather tha...”

“I was doing that thing the infatuated do, stitching destiny onto the person we want stitched to us.”

“A funny thing about women and machines: the combination made men curious. They seemed to think it had something to do with them.”

“Id been listening to men talk since I arrived in New York City. Thats what men like to do. Talk. Profess like experts. When one finally came along who didnt say much, I listened.”

“If your parents died suddenly, Sandro understood, your home was wherever you were, and now you were from nowhere. Your parents were your provenance. Dead, you had no provenance.”

“All you can do is involve yourself totally in your own life, your own moment, Lonzi said. And when we feel pessimism crouching on our shoulders like a stinking vulture, he said, we banish it, we sm...”

“Cut the ending. Revise the script. The man of her dreams is a girl.”

“Girls get screwed.Not that kind of screwed, what I mean is, they're always on the short end of things.The way things work, how guys feel great, but make girls feelcheap for doingexactly what they b...”

“Try patting them on the back or shoulder and telling them everything is going to be fine. Lots of times when girls cry, they don't want you to fix the problem, they just want to be consoled.”

“There are many things that make a man irritable when he arrives home from work in the evening and a sensible wife will usually notice the storm-signals and will leave him alone until he simmers down.”

“Oblivion, she thought. That was the world she lived in. It was what they should name some countries, towns, and places.”

“A lot of men wouldn't like being called a romantic. It's not macho enough.'Quite often men are fools.”

“Until that moment I'd thought I could have it both ways; to be one of them, and also my husband's wife. What conceit! I was his instrument, his animal. Nothing more. How we wives and mothers do per...”

“I am afraid of sex as sex is defined by the dominant culture, as practiced all around me, and projected onto magazine pages, billboards, and movie screens. I am afraid of sex because I am afraid of...”

“Male dominance in society always means that out of public sight, in the private, ahistorical world of men with women, men are sexually dominating women.”