Quotes from Gail Collins

Charley Parkhurst ran a stagecoach through dangerous territory for years and no one knew Charley was actually a woman until she died in 1879. "He was in his day one of the most dexterous and celebrated of the California drivers…and it was an honor to be striven for to occupy the spare end of the driver's seat when the fearless Charley Parkhurst held the reins," wrote the San Francisco Morning Call before Charley's sex was discovered.

Forty percent of the new dental school graduates were women, although as late as 1970 the dean of the University of Texas dental school had insisted on admitting no more than two women in every class of a hundred because "girls aren't strong enough to pull teeth.

Feminist' simply means someone who supports equal rights and opportunities for women. But there have been very few periods in American history when it didn't wind up being linked to images of cranky man-haters in unfashionable footwear.

Gay rights is just a matter of time. Look at the polls. Worrying about gay marriage, let alone gay civil unions or gay employment rights, is a middle-age issue. Young people just can't see the problem. At worst, gays are going to win this one just by waiting until the opposition dies off.

There's more student debt than credit card debt! Everywhere I go, I run into young people trying to build careers while they keep shelling out money on their education loans. If the economy is looking for a new generation of home-buyers, I can't imagine they'll get it from these folks.

Certainly Nancy Reagan had an extraordinary effect on her husband. I'm truly not sure that, say, Laura Bush had that much effect on the Bush administration. She certainly, you know, seems to be a nice person who I think the public likes. But I can't really put my finger on any huge impact she's had.

I kind of think that if you show conspiracy theorists a photo of the dead Bin Laden they will come up with an explanation for why it's really a Photoshopped picture of Bin Laden asleep. Or his dead cousin Fred. Donald Trump apparently believes that Bin Laden is dead, so that ought to be enough for the Middle East.

For years I've been hearing 20-somethings say they don't expect Social Security to be around when they hit 65. Eventually, I came to realize that they really mean that they just don't expect to be 65. Or 40. Neither did I, when I was 22.

I used to like John McCain, too, but I must admit that was because he was bucking his party to do things I agreed with. I would not have had that reaction if, say, Bernie Sanders decided to rebel out of principle and support privatizing Social Security.

My own dream is that we discover that the NSA has been secretly keeping files on members of the National Rifle Association.

Non-crazy gun advocates - the ones who aren't stockpiling in preparation for a zombie invasion - don't like the idea of expanding background checks because they think it'll be a lot more paperwork. And it probably would make it more difficult to sell guns at, say, a flea market.

Back in the '70s when my friends in California were at Berkeley, in-state tuition was around $700 a year.

When the simple word processors came in, writing became crisper, less dense - just because of the way we could instantly edit on the screen. Now the ability to mash up words and pictures and links and songs and tweets is what matters. I can't imagine what writing will be like in 2154.

Elections have to have at least a little meaning. Obama ran on income tax hikes for the wealthy. People knew they were voting for that. They want that. And it's good policy.

You know, I really miss sex scandals. They're generally colorful. They almost never mean anything over the long run. And while they're going on, the people who actually keep the government running are let alone to go about their business. Good old sex scandals.

There are a lot of people in Congress who would never have made a great career or fortune in any other profession. But after they spend a while hanging out with the rich guys, they begin to feel they've been undervalued, and that an eventual seven-figure income as a lobbyist isn't just an opportunity, it's their due.

The high point was that the people are really nice - despite the crazy politics - and I loved being there. The hardest part was knowing some of the things I was probably going to write about Texas would make those nice people very unhappy.

The Bushes were certainly part of Texas in their mind, but they didn't have the kind of political flavor that you normally find in Texas politicians. It's just Texas is such a unique place to itself that politically, at least so far, they haven't found anybody to play nationally.

How do you give smart, accomplished, ambitious women the same opportunities as men to reach their goals? What about universal preschool and after-school programs? What about changing the corporate mind-set about the time commitment it takes to move up the ladder? What about having more husbands step up and take the major load?

The whole student loan thing drives me completely nuts. If it wasn't possible for 18-year-olds to sign themselves up for tens of thousands of dollars in debt in order to pay their college bills, the state governments wouldn't have found it so politically easy to cut taxpayer support for public colleges and universities.

I'm being driven crazy by people who are obsessed with limiting the scope of government, but feel perfectly free to demand that government get involved in women's most personal choices.

DePaulo says that 'singlism' -- a term she coined and for which we are prepared to forgive her -- is not just aimed at unmarried women.

You can hit as many revolutions as you want, but women are always going to wear uncomfortable shoes that look good.

Women are needed in the military because there aren't enough soldiers, and we're seeing more women serve.