“Shame, which is the reluctance to be who we're not even sure we are, could end up being the deepest thing about us, deeper even than who we are, as though beyond identity were buried reefs and sunken cities teeming with creatures as we couldn't begin to name because they came long before us.”

“I guess we're all, or most of us, the wards of that nineteenth-century science which denied existence to anything it could not measure or explain. The things we couldn't explain went right on but surely not with our blessing. We did not see what we couldn't explain, and meanwhile a great part of the world was abandoned to children, insane people, fools, and mystics, who were more interested in what is than in why it is. So many old and lovely things are stored in the world's attic, because we don't want them around us and we don't dare throw them out.”

“We're all ghosts. We all carry, inside us, people who came before us.”

“Love is never easy. We begin by loving the things we can, according to our stature, but it is not long before we find that what we love is other than ourselves and that our love is no protection against being wounded. Do we then speak to dominate what we love, to make it bend to our will, to stop it from hurting us even though to do so is to betray love? And that is only where the difficulty begins..”

“There's a story unfolding with a definite beginning and an eventual end, and even though we can't begin to imagine what the whole plot is, and we can hardly even see beyond the present moment, someday we're going to see and understand all of it. For now, we trust. Later, we'll know.”

“Just like this, the kids we raised slowly start growing up and away from us. We have to gradually let go of their hands for them to grow... but as parents we're reluctant... because the instant of letting go is just too harsh. Even though deep down, we know that we have to let go one day.”