“Either a mother and daughter know each other very well or they are strangers.”

“If I could give you one thought, it would be to lift someone up. Lift a stranger up--lift her up. I would ask you, mother and father, brother and sister, lovers, mother and daughter, father and son, lift someone. The very idea of lifting someone up will lift you, as well.”

“Over time, we would learn each other and I would learn to love her like a mother loves a daughter, imperfectly and without roots.”

“Nothing is stranger or more ticklish than a relationship between people who know each other only by sight, who meet and observe each other daily - no hourly - and are nevertheless compelled to keep up the pose of an indifferent stranger, neither greeting nor addressing each other, whether out of etiquette or their own whim.”

“The more a daughter knows the details of her mother's life-without flinching or whining-the stronger the daughter.”

“Do you even really know how vampires are made?''Well, when a mommy vampire and a daddy vampire love each other very much...”