“(24/7) once you sign on to be a mother, that's the only shift they offer.”

“Reason number 106 why dogs are smarter than humans: once you leave the litter, you sever contact with your mothers.”

“That's the strange thing about being a mother: until you have a baby, you don't even realize how much you were missing one”

“Two thousand years ago the night sky looked completely different, and so when you get right down to it, the Greek conceptions of star signs as related to birth dates are grossly inaccurate for today's day and age. It's called the Line of Procession: back then the sun didn't set in Taurus, but in Gemini. A September 24 birthday didn't mean you were a Libra, but a Virgo. And there was a thirteenth zodiac constellation, Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer, which rose between Sagittarius and Scorpio for only four days.The reason it's all off kilter? The earth's axis wobbles. Life isn't nearly as stable as we want it to be.”

“Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's cart, and say, "Great. Maybe you can do a better job."Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast.Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed.”

“I wondered what happened when you offered yourself to someone, and they opened you, only to discover you were not the gift they expected and they had to smile and nod and say thank you all the same.”

“As a child, what I was missing was so much bigger to me than what I had. My mother-mythic, imaginary-was a deity and a superhero and a comfort all at once. If only I'd had her, surely, she would have been the answer to every problem; if only I'd had her , she would have been the cure for everything that ever had gone wrong in my life.”