Quotes

Part of her 2009 commencement speech: You are going to be trying to carve out a career in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. You are furthermore going to be trying to do so within what appears to be a dying industry. You have abundant skills and talents; it's just not clear that anyone wants to pay you for them. Well, you are not alone. How do you think it feels to be an autoworker right now? And I've spent time with plenty of laid-off paper mill workers, construction workers and miners. They've got skills; they've got experience. They just don't have jobs. So let me be the first to say this to you: Welcome to the American working class.

[observation, 2014, on being 73 and on her own] I think I like living alone. I'd be happy to have some fella who came over, just as long as he was out of there by 9 p.m.

[Her assessment of some personal mystical encounters] I've learned since I was seventeen, when these things happened, all kinds of people have uncanny experiences which they can see as transcendental or unspeakable or whatever, and some of these people are atheists.