“It had to be a mad dream, one that would give her the courage she would need to discard the prejudices of a class that had not always been hers but had become hers more than anyone’s. It had to teach her to think of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end in itself.”

“It had to teach her to think of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end it itself. ”

“[T]hink of love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end in itself.”

“The Lord spoke to her of his love for her-that she was his daughter, that he cared for her, that he had died for her. He said that he would have died if she had been the only one. He would have suffered at Calvary for her sins, if hers had been the only ones.”

“More than anything, more than anything she had with him, she missed the language they had invented, the likes of which she had never had nor would again. The thoughts and ideas he had birthed in her, his golden touch, and the words that erupted from her and became sparks of light to him.”

“The truth was that although my grandma loves us and we loved her, the courage to love someone new, someone she had no hand in creating had been razed from her, torn from its roots, burned and hacked from every follicle, every pore. So she was scared to love. Because she didn't think she could handle it. Because what would she do or become if love was stripped from her once more?”