“Kelly's mother was a bitch and her father was run over by the motor home when he chased a squirrel into the street, but I figured that was more information than my mother needed to know.”

“My father became a mythical figure, more force than man. . .he was a force my mother would use as a threat of wrath and punishment." In "Father Close, Father Far" New California Writing”

“It was as if, when her father spoke, her mother looked at him and saw a little goldfish, popping open his mouth over and over again but making no sound. And when her mother spoke, her father looked and saw a piranha doing the same thing.”

“Even when a girl is married she still never completely leaves her mother and father's home.”

“In Ibuza sons help their father more than they help their mother. A mother's joy is only in the name. She worries over them,looks after them when they are small;but in the actual help on the farm ,the upholding of the family name,all belong to the father.”

“I hadn’t had a mother since I was two, and from then until seven I had believed God was someone who had run off with her and was living with her somewhere else... (God took your mother, dear, because he needed her more than you do) which had never endeared him to me”