I moved into directing for a couple of reasons. ... Most directors, I — Nora Ephron

"I am continually fascinated at the difficulty intelligent people have in distinguishing what is controversial from what is merely offensive."

"Plastic surgery is a way for people to buy themselves a few years before they have to truly confront what ageing is, which of course is not that your looks are falling apart, but that you are falling apart and some-day you will have fallen apart and ceased to exist."

"The function of a blog is on some level to start a conversation that youre not involved in any more because youve already had your say. That thing of coming right off the news — did you see what I saw this morning, can you believe it? — has a kind of fun appeal."

"Stare at me in this faceless way, go mad with desire, and rip my clothes off. Its terrific. In my sex fantasy, nobody ever loves me for my mind. The fantasy of rape — of which mine is in a kind of prepubescent sub-category — is common enough among women and (in mirror image) among men."

"Whenever I get married, I start buying Gourmet magazine. I think of it as my own personal brides disease."

"Insane people are always sure theyre just fine. Its only the sane people who are willing to admit theyre crazy."

"There is a process known as parthenogenesis, literally virgin birth, by which a uniparental embryo can be created out of a normal egg. Its been done with animals. The only reason no one ever did it with humans is because it seemed ethically dodgy, as well as completely unnecessary given the willingness of men to impregnate women every chance they got."

"My passionate interest in social justice and social responsibility has always stood in curious contrast to a marked lack of desire for direct association with men and women."

"We agree with the District Court that the surgical center requirement, like the admitting privileges requirement, provides few, if any, health benefits for women, poses a substantial obstacle to women seeking abortions, and constitutes an “undue burden” on their constitutional right to do so."

"If the proverbial man of the planet Mars would come to this earth and inquire about the difference between "leader" and "ruler" he would learn that "rulers" are strange people who dressed in ermine, wore crowns, married foreign women, kept strictly to themselves, and had the inclination to administer the country without asking the people about their wishes. A "leader," on the other hand, he would be told, is a regular fellow in a simple uniform who embodies his nation, who tries desperately to create by propaganda complete unison between his ideas and the people. A leader, he might hear, was a local boy who made good, who spoke everybodys language, who never traveled abroad and disliked titles and royal paraphernalia."

"I have no hesitation in saying that although the American woman never leaves her domestic sphere and is in some respects very dependent within it, nowhere does she enjoy a higher station. And if anyone asks me what I think the chief cause of the extraordinary prosperity and growing power of this nation, I should answer that it is due to the superiority of their women."

"Washington is a city where dwell many of the first men of the land, and the women they married when they were young."