“Those early characterizations (Our parents give us) can become the shimmering self-image we embrace or the limited, stifling perception we rail against for a lifetime”

“He defined me first, as parents do. Those early characterizations can become the shimmering self-image we embrace or the limited, stifling perception we rail against for a lifetime.”

“It is in the times when we feel most broken that we can discover how to be better parents, and it is in the pauses and dashes in between when we are able to fill life with all of the delicious discoveries, images, and snapshots that we will carry with us throughout our lifetimes.”

“Each of us carries around those growing up places, the institutions, a sort of backdrop, a stage set. So often we act out the present against the backdrop of the past, within a frame of perception that is so familiar, so safe that is is terrifying to risk changing it even when we know our perceptions are distorted, limited, constricted by that old view.”

“we are the women our parents warned us against, and we are proud”

“Our self image, strongly held, essentially determines what we become.”