I Come From A Very Illustrious Line

She Looks At Herself In The Mirror. The Idea Is To Look Sexy Again. And For Whom Exactly? Yourself, Of Course. Yes, Well, That's All Wonderfully Self-affirming And Very Strong-minded As Any Decent Woman Should Be These Days, But Let's Just Face Facts Here And Say That When A Woman - No, When A Person Is Thinking About Feeling Sexy, It Is Always With The Idea Of Someone Else In Mind.

Everyone Desires Relationships And Community. Most People Want To Belong To A Cohesive, Like-minded Group. It Staves Off Loneliness. It Promotes Identity. These Are Natural And Very Human Instincts.

A Child, Thought Carl, Is Not The Only Result Of Childbirth. A Mother, Too, Is Born. You See Them Every Day--nondescript Women With A Bulge Just Above The Groin, Slightly Double-chinned. Perpetually Forty. Someone's Mother, You Think. There Is A Child Somewhere Who Has Made This Woman Into A Mother, And For The Sake Of The Child She Has Altered Her Appearance To Better Play The Part.

The People At The Very Top Could Fall By And Grace You With Their Presence And Give You A Little Largesse, And You'd Be "oh, I'm So Beloved." In A Way, It Was Kind Of Like Flattery. The Middle Managers Didn't Quite Have That Cachet, But At The Same Time, They Had To Seem Like They Were Of That Caliber. So There's A Little Bit Of Loneliness At The Heart Of Those With A Little Bit Of Power.

I Wake Up Every Day In Order To Do Something That's Quixotic, And Not Necessarily Called For In The World, But I Do It Because There's Extraordinary Meaning For Me Behind The Effort.