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I think older women still have a full life.

I think female solitude is a mental condition as well as a physical state. You can be married and a spinster. I think spinster is an identity every woman can claim, if she will... I feel like a lot of women, or a lot of feminists, joke about taking to the sea or living alone in a cottage as this kind of fun freedom.

Too often, older women are seen as victims, but I know lots of formidable women who have marvellous jobs as well as a full erotic life, and children and friends and family.

There are widows who long for friendly voices and that spirit of anxious concern which speaks of love.

The old, subjective, stagnant, indolent and wretched life for woman has gone. She has as many resources as men, as many activities beckon her on. As large possibilities swell and inspire her heart.

Women in the post-Fifties world were appendages. They existed to serve men. Their lives and concerns didn't matter, except insofar as they impinged on Important Male Things.

Women today are dealing with both their independence and also the fact that their lives are built around finding and satisfying the romantic models we grew up with.

Lives in previous centuries for women are largely a matter of class. It would have been fun to have been a rich, privileged woman in the 18th century, but no fun at all to be her maid.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

Clearly older women and especially older women who have led an active life or elder women who successfully maneuver through their own family life have so much to teach us about sharing, patience, and wisdom.