I was brought up to be uncompromisingly bloody-minded by my mother. She equipped me, without knowing it, to be someone who is creative rather than an entertainer. Not many girls are brought up like that, to never rely on a man. To not be a housewife, not be a mother.

The solution may be for a lot of the world's problems is to turn around and take a forward step. You can't just keep trying to make a flawed system work.

Back in the autumn I had awakened to a growing darkness and cacophony, as if something in the depths were crying out. A whole chorus of voices. Orphaned voices. They seemed to speak for all the unlived parts of me, and they came with a force and dazzle that I couldn't contain. They seemed to explode the boundaries of my existence. I know now that they were the clamor of a new self struggling to be born.

There shouldn't be any looting or anything like that. But we're seeing a lot of frustration, and nobody knows the answer. All of us are saying we need an answer, and what I'm saying is we need, all of us, a heart change so, as America, we can move forward.

When we as a society begin to value mothers as the givers and supporters of life, then we will see social change in ways that matter.

When you try to bring about behavioral change by an effort of will, you actually do violence to yourself, and the chances are very good that you will not succeed. This is so universally true that you can actually make money from it.