It is a long baptism into the seas of humankind, my daughter. Better immersion than to live untouched. - Tillie Olsen

women are traditionally trained to place others' needs first, to feel these needs as their own (the "infinite capacity"); their sphere, their satisfaction to be in making it possible for others to use their abilities.

There is reconciliation in the house where your mother lies weeping (chapter 6, p130)

In that Czarist Russia, Jewish girls were not taught even to read and write. It took (my mother) becoming a revolutionary and joining the Bund, the Jewish Bund, a socialist organization, to learn to read and love books.