Quotes from Gloria Steinem

The more polarized the gender roles, the more violent the society. The less polarized the gender roles, the more peaceful the society.

But controversy is a teacher.

If hard things ultimately have a purpose, then they aren't so hard anymore.

if girls were raised a little more like boys—if they had more right to say no, to declare boundaries, to develop a strong personal identity, to be angry, to rebel—they would be less likely to be revictimized as adults.

As I write this, there are mainstream educators trying to discredit efforts to diversify the academic canon by giving them the dreaded label "politically correct"—now known familiarly on campus as "P.C." (which, as Robin Morgan has pointed out, might well stand for "Plain Courtesy")—as if centuries of exclusion had not been the height (or depth) of politics.

I sometimes wonder if I am crisscrossing my father's ghostly paths and we are entering same towns or roadside diners or the black ribbons of highways that gleam in the night rain. As if we were images in a time-lapse photograph.

If you travel long enough, every story becomes a novel

The ultimate in parallel thinking is the Golden Rule—providing it is read both ways. The traditional sequence assumes a healthy self-esteem and asks for empathy: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." But for many people whose self-esteem has been suppressed, the revolution lies in reversing it: Do unto yourself as you would do unto others.

Laughter is a rescue.

People before paper; stories before statistics.

I also noticed that humor was even more of a survival tactic here than in most women's groups. As one asked: What did Columbus call primitive? Answer: Equal women.

I don't have time to explain that the women's movement named domestic violence in the first place, sought its prosecution by police and by new laws, created the first shelters, and has been working for thirty years to explain, for instance, that the moment of leaving is the time when a woman is most likely to be murdered, thus answering questions like "Why doesn't she just leave?

I don't think feminism can just be imitative or integrationist. By definition, it must transform. But in the short run, there are goals we agree on. And it's in the short run that we must act.

I soon developed myopia and a firm belief that people in books were not only more interesting but more real than people outside of books.

learned: people in the same room understand and empathize with each other in a way that isn't possible on the page or screen.

The dry tinder of inequality was everywhere, just waiting to be set on fire.

To be just, a law has to be flexible.

Learning to accept and even love difference, as she pointed out, is important for the future of the human race. There is great comfort in realizing that differences within a family have an important purpose.

So I sat down and began to make notes about many trips, past and present, that left me amazed by what is, angered by what isn't, and hooked on what could be.

one writerly habit was describing everything I did, no matter how absorbing or how trivial, as if I were standing outside myself and watching.

Don't make a story go stale by telling it to all your friends before your write it.

Marriage was always the happening end, not the beginning.

American travel seems to need an advocate.

I was surprised to find myself in tears. Because these women had trusted me to help as a writer, I began to see a way of bringing together two things - writing and activism - that until then had torn me apart in everyday life.