“Wherever I am, I see the yoke on women in some form or another. On some it sits easy for they are but beasts of burden.”

On some it galls and chafes; they feel assured by every instinct of their nature that they were designed for a higher, nobler calling than to ‘drag life’s lengthening chain along.

[On her recently widowed father’s much younger wife:] My father has been very busy in conjugating the verb to love, and I assure you he declines its moods and tenses inimitably.

Is not sorrow, all sorrow, selfish?

On others pride hushes them to silence; no complaint is made for they scorn pity or sympathy.

Some flowers give out little or no odour until crushed.

Girls are taught to seem, to appear – not to be and do.

I myself, with my own hands, have done 5,000 abortions. I have supervised another 10,000 that residents have done under my direction. So I have 75,000 abortions in my life. Those are pretty good credentials to speak on the subject of abortion.

Working with Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson takes you up another level.

Peace can come to both the giver and the receiver as we follow the promptings of the Spirit to serve one another.

So many interlocking spirals of history, genetics, common cause, and struggle that it should be the most basic of all drives, that you would strive to protect and love one another, yet this bond that should be the big no-brainer was in fact the hardest thing.

One way or another we are living the stories planted in us early or along the way, or we are also living the stories we planted – knowingly or unknowingly – in ourselves. We live stories that either give our lives meaning or negate it with meaninglessness. If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives.’

I don’t want to play out of another man’s bag.

I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is ground Upon my flesh t’inflict another wound. Yet dare I not complain, or wish for death With holy Paul; lest it be thought the breath Of discontent; or that these prayers be For weariness of life, not love of thee.

And culture is – each of us – is like one pearl added to another to make a chain. We each contribute to the other. And that’s all right. But once you’re on your own, do that which comes from within. And I feel this very strongly.