Alice Steinbach quotes:

A letter is always better than a phone call. People write things in letters they would never say in person. They permit themselves to write down feelings and observations using emotional syntax far more intimate and powerful than speech will allow.

I suppose that, after the passion of love, water rights have caused more trouble than anything else to the human species.

Going back to school is like going back in time. Immediately, for better or for worse, you must give up a little piece of your autonomy in order to become part of the group. And every group, of course, has its hierarchies and rules- spoken and unspoken. It is like learning to live once again in a family- which, of course, is the setting where all learning begins.

I made dangerous choices in those years, thinking myself bold and adventurous. Later I would come to understand that I hadn't been daring at all, just driven by confusion and hormones. The person capable of true daring, I knew now, possessed two admirable qualities: curiosity and courage.

The fun-seekers, I noted, were spontaneous and flexible. They approached each day and each situation with a willingness to ride whatever wave came along, just for the experience of it. The complainers, on the other hand, would only catch a wave if it was exactly to their liking. Anything else drew loud protestations about how it was not what they expected.

Women would be better off when they no longer needed men more than they needed their own independent identities...How long a time it took me after my divorce to understand that being alone is not the same as being lonely.

I suspected, however, that I wasn't homesick for anything I would find at home when I returned. The longing was for what I wouldn't find: the past and all the people and places there were lost to me.

What is the purpose of memory? Is it a trick to make sure we don't forget who we are by reminding us of who we were?

It is one of the strongest bonds, I think, that can spring up between people: sharing a passion for certain books and their authors.

I'm a woman in search on an adventure

Women, I learned, adapted. At first..they seemed so fragile, so dependent on fathers and husbands and brothers and lovers. Gradually, though, I noticed how supple their lives were beneath the surface. Then I realized it was this flexibility that enabled them to survive...that sooner or later, by choice or by chance, most women faced the task of adapting to a future on their own. When at my most optimistic, I thought of it as independence; in darker moods, as survival. Either way women had to do it.

Freedom has its dangers as well as its joys. And the sooner we learn to get up after a fall, the better off we'll be.

And who's to say that just because something lasts only a short time, it has little value?

Mother loved the wind. When I was growing up, she would recite this poem to me. Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I, But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by. So it is with God.