“The situation of women and men is not comparable to worker-boss or black and white.”

I never set out to write a book to change women’s lives, to change history. It’s like, ‘Who, me?’ Yes, me. I did it. And I’m not that different from other women. Maybe my power and glory was that I could speak my truth as a woman and it was the truth of every woman.

I knew one thing. I did not want to be a mommy like mommy.

The problem that has no name-which is simply the fact that American women are kept from growing to their full human capacities-is taking a far greater toll on the physical and mental health of our country than any known disease.

To protest free speech in the name of protecting women is dangerous and wrong.

When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman.

Dominance is a burden. Most men who are honest will admit that.

I understood somehow my mother’s frustration. And that it was no good not only for her, but for her children or her husband, that she didn’t have a real use of her ability.

Each woman is made to feel it is her own cross to bear if she can’t be the perfect clone of the male superman and the perfect clone of the feminine mystique.

Men are not the enemy, but the fellow victims. The real enemy is women’s denigration of themselves.

If I were a man, I would strenuously object to the assumption that women have any moral or spiritual superiority as a class.

Instead of fulfilling the promise of infinite orgasmic bliss, sex in the America of the feminine mystique is becoming a strangely joyless national compulsion, if not a contemptuous mockery.

Today the problem that has no name is how to juggle work, love, home and children.

A good woman is one who loves passionately, has guts, seriousness and passionate convictions, takes responsibility, and shapes society.

While I had been, I guess, quite brilliant, academically, in my college years, I also had been editor of the paper, and I loved that. And, that was a much more active thing. And I missed it when I was doing graduate work.

There is absolutely no evidence that it is harmful to children if their mother’s health, well-being and autonomy and control of her own destiny is maximized by work outside the home.

We need to see men and women as equal partners, but its hard to think of movies that do that. When I talk to people, they think of movies of forty-five years ago! Hepburn and Tracy!

For today’s generation of blacks to act as if their struggle compares to that of two generations ago insults and diminishes that generation’s struggle.

The myth of the strong black woman is the other side of the coin of the myth of the beautiful dumb blonde.

The scourge of injustice in our society must be overcome. We are united in the struggle for justice as we turn towards the bright light of truth and the warm embrace of reconciliation.

He who seeks equality between unequals seeks an absurdity.

Don’t judge people when your view is only partial.

I think in black communities today we need to encourage a lot more cross racial organizing.

All are one.

There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution.