“I now know for certain that my mind and emotions, my fix on the real and my family's well-being, depend on just a few grams of salt. But treatment's the easy part. Without honesty, without a true family reckoning, that salt's next to worthless.”

“I come from a family of screamers. If they are trying to express any emotion or idea beyond pass the salt, it comes in shrieks.”

“I had to be the next family Alchemist. My sister... well, she's older, and usually it's the oldest kid who has to do the job. But, she's kind of... worthless. -Sydney to Rose”

“And a mother without children is not a mother at all, and if I am not a mother, than I am nothing. Nothing. I am like sugar dissolved in a glass of water. Or, I am like salt, which disappears when you cook with it. I am salt. Without my children, I cease to exist.”

“You are in me. In the deepest part of me. Deeper than my memories, my unconscious thoughts. Deeper than my ever-changing emotions. You are in the place right next to where I keep my faith in God (a faith that I won't let go of now, in spite of it being shaken many times, from without and within). You're deep in me.”

“I'm a Cynster--I've been raised to acquire, defend, and protect. My family is the core of my existence--without a family, without children, I'd have nothing to protect, no reason to acquire.”