“[I]nternalized experiences of selfhood are linked to autobiographical narratives, which are linked to biographies, legal testimonies, and medical case histories, which are linked to forms of therapy and theories of the subject. . .”

“Twenty thousand days and nights in one place, each layered and trapped and folded on top of the last, the creases in her hands, the aches between her vertebrae. Embryo, seed coat, endosperm: What is a seed if not the purest kind of memory, a link to every generation that has gone before it?”

“Tethered to the universe by tendrils of history, with threads of continuity descending to God knows where, I see that I'm more than the dust I'll become.”

“The self is constituted within a variety of arenas and in relation to multiple traditions. Self-hood, on this understanding, is both provisional and open-ended, and critically depends on the configuration of relationships between one’s own groups and those cultures and values that are deemed ‘other’. The regulation of alterity becomes a defining attribute of self-hood, as my sense of who I am is crucially mediated by an understanding of that which I am not (paraphrasing William Connolly).”

“The tie which links mother and child is of such pure and immaculate strength as to be never violated.”

“It is disappointing how people tend not to read a broad range of material. When the poets only read poetry, the historians only read history, the theorists only read theory, and the philosophers only read philosophy, we experience a clear deficiency in poetry, history, theory, and philosophy. We are far away from Renaissance human beings sculpting themselves to be full and all encompassing in knowledge and life pursuits.”

“Good works are links that form a chain of love" Mother Theresa”