Quotes from Karen DeCrow

Opera is the most complete art form. It includes drama, acting, technology (lighting), art (the sets), dance, and the epitome of the human voices. But mostly, go for the glorious music. The arts are crucial to the life of every community.

How did abortion and birth control impact the congressional race of Dan Maffei and Ann Marie Buerkle or the presidential race between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney? I don't know. But I think the so-called social issues were front and center in the minds of voters. These issues may indeed have lost the Republicans some elections.

After 'Roe v. Wade' - when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in 1973 - I thought the national conversation about abortion and birth control would be over. It was not.

As any opera fan knows, lawyers and judges do not fare well in most operas. Just consider the productions of 'Andrea Chenier,' 'Aida, Norma,' 'Billy Budd,' 'Peter Grimes,' 'The Crucible,' 'Lost in the Stars,' 'The Marriage of Figaro,' 'The Makropulos Case' and Wagner's 'Ring' cycle. Around 1810, the theme of justice emerged in opera.

The irony is that the more we fight age, the more it shows. Paint on a 50-year-old face brings to mind a Gilbert and Sullivan comic figure. Smooth the cheeks, and suddenly the ear lobes and hands look out of place. Do we run around in October, painting the gold leaves green?

George McGovern - and I campaigned very hard for his election - was not, in the summer of 1971, a strong feminist ally. But he did come around.

Patricia Nixon gave up a career to become a political wife. She rose to the pinnacle of glory and then fell to disgrace because of deeds over which she had neither control nor knowledge.

During the Renaissance, women were not allowed to attend art school. Everyone asks, where are the great women painters of the Renaissance?

Opponents of legal birth control, including abortion, have tried for decades to play the race card, saying that legal abortion is racist. What they ignore is that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted the Margaret Sanger Award from Planned Parenthood in 1966.

No matter what is happening in life or in the world - war, natural disaster, poor health, pain, the death of loved ones - if existence is filled with art, music and literature, life will be fulfilling, a joy.

In the battle between the sexes, men and women will go practically to the end of the earth in illogical, irrational ways to give each other pain.

Fifty-nine cents. For years, I wore a button - '59 cents.' Many of my colleagues wore it also. The purpose was so that people would come up and ask, 'What does '59 cents' mean?' One could then launch into a discussion about how women working full time in the U.S. earn 59 cents for every dollar earned by men.

As I grow older, I become more and more of a Marxist -- Groucho, that is. When you have lived two-thirds of your life, you know the value of a good joke.

I enjoy practicing law too much to even contemplate retiring, but I often think about engaging in serious study of the history of art, of the intricacies of classical music. I could write a fugue, or perhaps learn to play the cello.

Despite the strength of the feminist movement in the 1970s and beyond, a fable has persisted that educated women are rejected as marriage partners.

Over the years, the most ponderous problem for women has been that men think that men and women are very different. Another of our massive problems is that women also think that men and women are very different.

In 1989, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that minority set-aside programs in municipal contracts were unconstitutional. The court wondered if there were proof that people of color even want to receive municipal contracts.

Being first lady is a full-time job. Betty Ford worked full time and should have received a salary. Michelle Obama works full time and should be paid.

Betty Ford and I were colleagues for years, working together for women's rights in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere in the country.

Is it a recent occurrence that women have tried to control when and if they reproduced? Absolutely not. By 2000 B.C., there was worldwide use of herbal potions to prevent pregnancy. Condoms were made from animal bladders.

I was running for mayor of Syracuse - the first woman to run for mayor in our city, or in New York, and one of the first in the United States. I was known for my strong conservation plank. In 1969, the term 'conservation' was hardly on the tip of every citizen's tongue.

Daddy was hilarious. He could take the most mundane event and tell it so that we all on the floor laughing. He trained me in the joys of humor.

I joined NOW on an issue of pay.

When 'Carmen' premiered in 1875, it was panned by the critics. It survived 45 performances. It was called a musical and moral outrage. After Bizet died, at age 37, 'Carmen' became wildly popular. If you believe in your creation, and the rest of the world is laughing or yelling 'Boo,' don't give up.