people think that they have to use their brains to figure out how best to retaliate or how best to make war. And it brings us to total hopelessness. … - Grace Paley

People like myself who must begin again and again in order to get anywhere at all.

The woman on the other phone is young and in tears. She's saying, "Mom. Ma, please, it's my world they're gonna blow up." Then some silence. Then: "Ma, please, I have to do it. It's not terrible to get arrested. I'm all right, Ma, please listen, you got married and had us and everything and a house, but they still kept making nuclear bombs." More tears. "Listen, listen please, Ma." I wanted to take the phone from her and say, "Ma, don't worry, your kid's okay. She's great. Don't you see she's one of the young women who will save my granddaughter's life?"

Someone like Mary Daly doesn't even know how people live-but other women, I think they come from suburban lives or something like that, and no family. That's a certain kind of life but it's not general female life. (1981)