“Other people look at me and think: That poor woman; she has a child with a disability. But all I see when I look at you is that girl who had memorized all the words to Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody' by the time she was three, the girl who crawls into bed with me whenever there's a thunderstorm - not because you're afraid but because I am, the girl whose laugh has always vibrated inside my own body like a tuning fork. I would never have wished for an able-bodied child, because that child would have been someone who wasn't you.”

“I have never fit into this town, this marriage, this skin. I am the child who was picked last to play tag; I am the girl who laughed although she did not get the joke; I am the piecemeal part of you that you pretend doesn't exist, except it is all I am, all the time. ”

“I went over to see Marina two or three or four times a week. I knew as long as I could see the girl I would be all right…. Soon after, I got a letter from Fay. She and the child were living in a hippie commune in New Mexico. It was a nice place, she said. Marina would be able to breathe there. She enclosed a little drawing the girl had made for me.”

“Who am I to try to change things, to get greedy and want more? If our Society changes and things are different, who am I to tell the girl who would have enjoyed the safe protected life that now she has to have choice and danger because of me?”

“i was the never the girl who thought i need to make sure i look like all the other girl. i think you look best when you stand out”

“I am who I say I am,I'm not some fantasyof how you think you think you knowor who I ought to be.I am a girl who is growing up in my own sweet time,I am a girl who knows enoughto know this life is mine.I am this and I am that andI am everything in-between.I'm a dreamer, I'm a dancer,I'm a part-time drama queen.I'm a worrier, I'm a warrior,I'm a loner and a friend,I'm an outspoken defenderof justice to the end.I'm the girl in the mirror who likes the girl she sees,I'm the girl in the gypsy shawlwith music in her knees.I'm a singer and a scholar,I'm a girl who has been kissed.I'm a solver of equationswearing bangles on my wrist.I am bigger than i ever knew,I am stronger than before,I am every girl I have ever been,and all that are in store.I am who I say I am.I'm not some fantasy.I am the me I am inside.I am whoI choseto be.”