Grief Is In Two Parts. The First

We Flashed Our Feathers When The Feathers Were Fit To Be Flashed, And Now, In Drearier Days, Many Stay Indoors.

I Think Our Material Is Our Lives. That's Part Of Being A Modern Writer, And We Have To Use It.

Our Mythology Tells Us So Much About Fathers And Sons. ... What Do We Know About Mothers And Daughters? ... Our Power Is So Oblique, So Hidden, So Ethereal A Matter, That We Rarely Struggle With Our Daughters Over Actual Kingdoms Or Corporate Shares. On The Other Hand, Our Attractiveness Dries As Theirs Blooms, Our Journey Shortens Just As Theirs Begins. We Too Must Be Afraid And Awed And Amazed That We Cannot Live Forever And That Our Replacements Are Eager For Their Turn, Indifferent To Our Wishes, Ready To Leave Us Behind.

Self-pity Is Never Useful. It Tends To Distort Like A Fun-house Mirror.

Most Of Us Don't Have Mothers Who Blazed A Trail For Us--at Least, Not All The Way. Coming Of Age Before Or During The Inception Of The Women's Movement, Whether As Working Parents Or Homemakers, Whether Married Or Divorced, Our Mothers Faced Conundrums--what Should They Be? How Should They Act?--that Became Our Uncertainties.