“Objective truths of science are not founded in belief systems. They are not established by the authority of leaders or the power of persuasion. Nor are they learned from repetition or gleaned from magical thinking. To deny objective truths is to be scientifically illiterate, not to be ideologically principled.”

“Someone who knew Barbara Loden well told me: 'She said it is easy to be avant-garde but it is really difficult to tell a simple story well.”

“Reading, she now understood, had been her own choice of rebellion.”

“The psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer has a simple heuristic. Never ask the doctor what you should do. Ask him what he would do if he were in your place. You would be surprised at the difference”

“But I had not known that I was strong enough to do any of those things until they were over and I had done them. I had to do the work first, not knowing.”

“Eating a can be the weight that pulls you under or the life raft. It's your choice.”

“Ideas are not really alive if they are confined to only one person’s mind.”

“Beauty and ingenuity beat perfection hands down, every time.”