Remember: Resist Do Not Comply.

Writing Is Alchemy. Dross Becomes Gold. Experience Is Transformed. Pain Is Changed. Suffering May Become Song. The Ordinary Or Horrible Is Pushed By The Will Of The Writer Into Grace Or Redemption, A Prophetic Wail, A Screed For Justice, An Elegy Of Sadness Or Sorrow. ... There Is Always A Tension Between Experience And The Thing That Finally Carries It Forward, Bears Its Weight, Holds It In. Without That Tension, One Might As Well Write A Shopping List.

By The Time We Are Women, Fear Is As Familiar To Us As Air. It Is Our Element. We Live In It, We Inhale It, We Exhale It, And Most Of The Time We Do Not Even Notice It.

The Creative Mind Is Intelligence In Action In The World.

In This Society, The Norm Of Masculinity Is Phallic Aggression. Male Sexuality Is, By Definition, Intensely And Rigidly Phallic. A Man's Identity Is Located In His Conception Of Himself As The Possessor Of A Phallus; A Man's Worth Is Located In His Pride In Phallic Identity. The Main Characteristic Of Phallic Identity Is That Worth Is Entirely Contingent On The Possession Of A Phallus. Since Men Have No Other Criteria For Worth, No Other Notion Of Identity, Those Who Do Not Have Phalluses Are Not Recognized As Fully Human.

The Nature Of Women's Oppression Is Unique: Women Are Oppressed As Women, Regardless Of Class Or Race; Some Women Have Access To Significant Wealth, But That Wealth Does Not Signify Power; Women Are To Be Found Everywhere, But Own Or Control No Appreciable Territory; Women Live With Those Who Oppress Them, Sleep With Them, Have Their Children - We Are Tangled, Hopelessly It Seems, In The Gut Of The Machinery And Way Of Life Which Is Ruinous To Us.