“The bar is masculine, and women must adopt traditionally masculine characteristics cultivated insensitivity, goal-orientated thinking, the prioritising of the material to compete.”

“Repudiating the vulnerability I felt had wrecked the lives of women around me, I modelled myself on my controlled father. I wanted his freedom and his focus. To him, a family was an aquarium: contr...”

“My generation was, in effect, the product of a social experiment. If we did not understand marital intimacy, it was because we had not seen it modelled. We lurched from relationship to relationship...”

“It is only through my daughter that I have come to realise that a life without femininity devoid of mystery, emotion, gentleness and the unerring power of a womans love is no life at all.”

“There were times when I would sob until I shook, until my eyelids were so swollen that it pained me to open them, and through hiccoughs, trembling, I would hiss, dont touch me! as he moved to place...”

“In our circle, stress was a valuable status marker: I stress, therefore I am.”

“Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own wo...”

“I'm a heart surgeon, sure, but I'm just a mechanic. I go in and I fuck around and I fix things. Shit.”

“Cat, I'll let you in on a little secret. We don't all love our jobs every day. And doing something you have passion for doesn't make the work part of it any easier...It just makes you less likely t...”

“I had a romance novel inside me, but I paid three sailors to beat it out of me with steel pipes.”

“The world has enough women who know how to be smart. It needs women who are willing to be simple. The world has enough women who know how to be brilliant. It needs some who will be brave. The world...”

“The heart of a woman is the best mirror you can find.”

“Your hard-won triumphs can be wholly negated if you live in a climate where your victories are seen as threatening, incorrect, distasteful, or -- most crucially of all, for a teenage girl -- simply...”