There are moment of sadness and moment of joy. This is life.

This is Trenicia, the queen of the warrior women of the Isle of Akalla. Different places have different traditions and different customs. On the Isle of Akalla, the women rule, and the women do the fighting.""What do the men do?" the horseman Ekial asked curiously."As little as they possibly can," the warrior woman said in a sardonic tone. "Over the years, they’ve foisted just about everything off on us. We have to grow the food, hunt the meat, and fight the wars. The men sit around getting fat and arguing with each other about something they call 'philosophy' - most of which is pure nonsense.

Making God a man is the consolation prize that our forefathers gave themselves for not being the ones who were each blessed with a vagina.

In a patriarchal society, one of the most important functions of the institution of the family is to make feel like a somebody whenever he is in his own yard a man who is a nobody whenever he is in his employer’s yard.

The female warrior knows how to fight without violence. She knows when not to raise her sword, but instead hold up her heart. Her shield is not a defense against others but a shelter for all.

The patrists poison themselves. The matrists tend to decay, which is merely another kind of poison.

In Bonoboville, the females gently but firmly rule the roost, keeping the males gentle and firm

I sometimes try to imagine what would have happened if we’d known the bonobo first and the chimpanzee only later—or not at all. The discussion about human evolution might not revolve as much around violence, warfare and male dominance, but rather around sexuality, empathy, caring and cooperation. What a different intellectual landscape we would occupy!