“Or maybe, knowing that intercourse involved certain unsavory sights, smells, and sounds, God deliberately left the ingredients for alcohol lying around where man would undoubtedly find them.”

“I don't know what to saw about a man who calls a perfectly adorable three-year old a fucker, but "my hero" comes to mind.”

“I envy my dad and his faith. I envy all people who have someone to beseech, who know where they're going, who sleep under the fluffy white comforter of belief.”

“If John Lennon was right that life is what happens when you're making other plans, parenthood is what happens when everything is flipped over and spilling everywhere and you can't find a towel or a sponge or your "inside" voice.”

“When you are in pain, and you see someone else in pain, there is really nothing as satisfying as giving them comfort in the night.”

“Even when all the paperwork-a marriage license, a notarized deed, two birth certificates, and seven years of tax returns-clearly indicates you're an adult, but all the same, there you are, clutching the phone and thanking God that you're still somebody's daughter.”

“It is one thing to be a man's wife - quite another to be the mother of his children. In fact, once you become a mother, being a wife seems like a game you once played or a self-help book you were overly impressed with as a teenager that on second reading is puffy with common ideas. This was one of the many things I had learned since crossing over into the middle place - that sliver of time when childhood and parenthood overlap.”