CAROLYN HEILBRUN (1926 - 2003)

"One cannot make up stories; one can only retell in new ways the stories one has already heard."

"Rational suicide'' is what some call killing yourself to avoid something worse. The phrase has a stoical, ancient Roman ring to it -- think of Brutus, Cleopatra, Seneca. For them, the alternative was humiliation and execution. For us, it's pain, senility, the dragged-out deathbed of the modern hospital, the cumulative debilities and losses of old age. ''Quit while you're ahead was, and is, my motto,'' wrote Carolyn Heilbrun, explaining why she had long intended to kill herself at 70.
The Lives They Lived

more quotes:
Ideas move rapidly when their time comes.

Today's shocks are tomorrow's conventions.

. . . a relationship has a momentum, it must change and develop, and will tend to move toward the point of greatest commitment.

Ironically, women who acquire power are more likely to be criticized for it than are the men who have always had it.