“She was a terrible mother, there was no doubt about it, but she didn't even have the strength to feel guilty.”

“Yet the French have managed to be involved without becoming obsessive. They assume that even good parents aren't at the constant service of their children, and that there's no need to feel guilty about this. "For me, the evenings are for the parents." one Parisian mother tells me. "My daughter can be with us if she wants, but it's adult time.”

“She didn't have the strength to fight hunger and injustice,she didn't know how to fight hunger and injustice,she didn't know how to fight, but she refused to enjoy a feast during this plague.”

“...I fear that some of us understand just enough about the gospel to feel guilty--guilty that we are not measuring up to some undefinable standard--but not enough about the Atonement to feel the peace and strength, the power and mercy it affords us.”

“She didn't like to be talked about. Equally, she didn't like not to be talked about, when the high-minded chatter rushed on as though she was not there. There was no pleasing her, in fact. She had the grace, even at eleven, to know there was no pleasing her. She thought a lot, analytically, about other people's feelings, and had only just begun to realize that this was not usual, and not reciprocated.”

“She listened for Terrible's voice in her head and didn't hear it.Of course, she also couldn't feel her extremities. But life was full of tradeoffs, right?”