“In truth a family is what you make it. It is made strong, not by number of heads counted at the dinner table, but by the rituals you help family members create, by the memories you share, by the commitment of time, caring, and love you show to one another, and by the hopes for the future you have as individuals and as a unit.”

“It seems all humans ever do is muddle through and hope to have a rest period before the next obstacle comes along. It’s the love that keeps us going, whether it’s a partner, or your family, or your friends who are also your family. If we didn’t have that love, anything else keeping you running will eventually burn out.”

“Never in your life have you been helpless—under somebody’s heel. You never lived where your enemies held power over you, power to run your life or wipe it out. You can’t understand. That’s how come you stand there feeding me empty slogans!” Luciente bowed her head. “You crit me justly, Connie. Forgive me. I’ll try to see your situation more clearly and make less loud noises in your ears.”

“To Have Without Holding:Learning to love differently is hard,love with the hands wide open, lovewith the doors banging on their hinges,the cupboard unlocked, the windroaring and whimpering in the roomsrustling the sheets and snapping the blindsthat thwack like rubber bandsin an open palm.It hurts to love wide openstretching the muscles that feelas if they are made of wet plaster,then of blunt knives, thenof sharp knives.It hurts to thwart the reflexesof grab, of clutch, to love and letgo again and again. It pesters to rememberthe lover who is not in the bed,to hold back what is owed to the workthat gutters like a candle in a cavewithout air, to love consciously,conscientiously, concretely, constructively.I can't do it, you say it's killingme, but you thrive, you glowon the street like a neon raspberry,You float and sail, a helium balloonbright bachelor's buttons blue and bobbingon the cold and hot winds of our breath,as we make and unmake in passionatediastole and systole the rhythmof our unbound bonding, to haveand not to hold, to lovewith minimized malice, hungerand anger moment by moment balanced.”

“The real writer is one who really writes. Talent is an invention like phlogiston after the fact of fire. Work is its own cure. You have to like it better than being loved.”

“If I die this instant will you be more content with the morning news? Will your coffee taste better? I am not your fate. I am not your government…I am not your mother, not your father or your nightmare or your health. I am not a fence, not a wall. I am not the law or actuarial tables of your insurance broker. I am a woman with my guts loose in my hands, howling and it’s not because I committed hari-kiri. I suggest either you cook me or sew me back up. I suggest you walk into my pain as into the breaking waves of an ocean of blood, and either we will climb out together and walk away.”

“Attention is love, what we must givechildren, mothers, fathers, pets,our friends, the news, the woes of others.What we want to change we curse and thenpick up a tool. Bless whatever you canwith eyes and hands and tongue. If youcan't bless it, get ready to make it new.”