“I remember my mother's prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.”

“The mother memories that are closest to my heart are the small gentle ones that I have carried over from the days of my childhood. They are not profound, but they have stayed with me through life, and when I am very old, they will still be near . . . Memories of mother drying my tears, reading aloud, cutting cookies and singing as she did, listening to prayers I said as I knelt with my forehead pressed against her knee, tucking me in bed and turning down the light. They have carried me through the years and given my life such a firm foundation that it does not rock beneath flood or tempest.”

“All the women of this fevered night, all that I had danced with, all whom I had kindled or who have kindled me, all whom I had courted, all who had clung to me with longing, all whom I had followed with enraptured eyes were melted together and had become one, the one whom I held in my arms.”

“I thought you had forgotten me.”“I have spent my life remembering you.”

“My mother always called me 'sturdy' and said I have big bones. A little fat is what I am.”

“I wonder if they talk about my ending as a tragedy. If the words would have and should have clung their talons behind my name, or if their sentences always have the word was instead of is.”