"All too often, men and women are like battered wives or abused children. We hold on to the continuity we have, however profoundly it is flawed. If change were less frightening, if the risks did not seem so great, far more could be lived" (Composing a Life, Chapter 1, pg. 8.)

"Fluidity and discontinuity are central to the reality in which we live. Women have always lived discontinuous and contingent lives, but men today are newly vulnerable, which turns women's traditional adaptations into a resource" (Composing a Life, Chapter 1, pg. 13.)

"My mother believed that all women, whether they have had busy multiple careers or are reviving old interests after decades as homemakers, have a hidden resource of energy and vitality for their later years. She called it 'postmenopausal zest'" (Composing a Life, Chapter 2, pg. 28.)

"Composing a life involves a continual reimagining of the future and reinterpretation of the past to...