“But, like ivy, we grow where there is room for us.”

“Everywhere the devil spits, poison ivy grows.”

“None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody - a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns - bent down and helped us pick up our boots.”

“Ivy still had her tree up in the living room, and we exchanged presents when we felt like it, not on a specific date. Usually that was about an hour after I got back from shopping. Delayed gratification was Ivy’s thing, not mine.”

“I don't know when it started - this thing - bit it's growing, muffling me, suffocating me like poison ivy. I grew into it. It grew into me. We blurred at the edges, became an amorphous, seeping, crawling thing.”

“a laotong relationship is made by choice...when we first looked in each other's eyes in the palanquin I felt something special pass between us--like a spark to start a fire or a seed to grow rice. But a single spark is not enough to warm a room nor is a single seed enough to grow a fruitful crop. Deep love--true-heart love--must grow.”