“My mother used to talk about passages and, once in a while, about ordeals. We all have them; we are all shaped by them. She thought the key was to find the healing in the hurt.”

“But in reading all of the passages in which Jesus uses the word "hell," what is so striking is that people believing the right or wrong things isn't his point. He's often not talking about "beliefs" as we think of them--he's talking about anger and lust and indifference. He's talking about the state of his listeners' hearts, about how they conduct themselves, how they interact with their neighbors, about the kind of effect they have on the world.”

“The shackles." She stirred. "Aryal has both sets of chains, and the key," she told him, muffled against his skin. "She swears she'll find a way to destroy them. She's saying 'My Precious' a lot and talking about dropping them into a volcano.”

“Sometimes it is better not to talk about art by using the word "art". If we just act with awareness and integrity, our art will flower, and we don't have to talk about it at all.”

“We all have many more abilities and internal resources than we know. My advice is that you don't need to break your neck to find out about them.”

“The world moves on so fast, and we lose all chance of being the women our mothers were; we lose all understanding of what shaped them.”