People had gone too far in destroying the earth, and now the earth was diminishing the number of people. (fourteen: BY THE LIGHT OF THE UNYELLOW MOON) - Marge Piercy

When I was a child, I first noticed that neither history as I was taught it, nor the stories I was told, seemed to lead to me. I began to fix them. I have been at it ever since. We need a past that leads to us. Similarly, what we imagine we are working toward does a lot to define what we will consider doable action aimed at producing the future we want and preventing the future we fear.

I like sex because it's one of the ways that people leave off operating so much with forebrain. If I like poetry because it ties all the different ways of knowing and being together, sex does the same thing.

"I used to wonder what I did wrong. But now I think that unless you grossly mistreat a child or spoil her or let her be injured, basically there's a given element in all of us, something from genes or the moment. From birth on, a child follows her own path. She learns, but she also unfolds from within." (Malkah, twenty-eight: HOW CAN WE TELL THE DANCER FROM THE DANCE?)