If you believe in the maternal instinct and fail at mother love, you fail as a woman. It is a controlling idea that holds us in an iron grip.

The older I get...the more of my mother I see in myself.

When is enough enough? In envy's eyes, enough never is. Somebody else always has something we want.

Sexuality is the great field of battle between biology and society.

I think biologically we are attracted to more than one person, but given society and our needs, monogamy works better.

After sex, men fear too much intimacy they want to separate again. Women want to talk, to continue the merging, melting fusion into one. Postcoital conversations keep the woman's power alive. Through unconscious severance, by falling asleep, the man regains his self.

All my writing has been an effort to sort out the paradoxes of my life.

No man can be really free in bed with a woman who is not.

Spontaneous love admits errors, hesitations and human failings. It can be tested and repaired.

Blaming mother is just a negative way of clinging to her still.

If women really want equality, we have to wipe the slate clean. It no longer matters in the largest sense what men did to us for the last 200 or 300 years.

Separation is not the end of love it creates love.

For instance, in group therapy, I'll have people stand up, show off, give a speech about themselves as though they've just died and have to give a eulogy. Even with this explicit permission - even an order - to say something nice about themselves, this is the hardest thing in the world for people to do. They'd rather take their clothes off.

Fantasy isn't something you run out of.

Inside every adult male is a denied little boy.

Our culture raises us to seek success but we are not taught how to live with it.