“I hope you never hear those words. Your mom. She died. They are different than other words. They are too big to fit in your ears. They belong to some strange, heavy, powerful language that pounds away at the side of your head, a wrecking ball coming at you again and again, until finally, the words crack a hole large enough to fit inside your brain. And in so doing, they split you apart. ”

“Then I want you to run all of your words backward in your head and listen to them. Then put on my ears and listen to them again, and then tell me what you hear. -Lydia to Seth”

“If you do not hear music in your words, you have put too much thought into your writing and not enough heart.”

“She isn't a storm or a leader or a king or a war or anyone whose life and death makes noise. The problem is words. There is skin, yes. And then, inside that, there is your language, the casual, inherited magic spells taht make your skin real. It's too late now--even if we could say "Shut up" or "Where's my dinner?" in the first language, the real language, the words weren't born in us. And unless your skin and your language touch each other without interruption, there is no word strong enough to make you understand that it matters that you live. The things that really "stay" are an Orisha, a kind night, a pretended boy, a garden song that made no sense. Those come closer to being enough.”

“Your body's cold, hope is lost, I can't let goCan I die with you so we can never grow old?Cut the ties, cut the ties with this note you left behindAs I read the words I hear you telling me whyToo late, too late, I never said goodbyeToo late, too late, can't even ask you whyAnd now I'm wasting away in my own miseryI hope you're finally gone to a place where you belong”

“The point of freewriting is to get past the voice inside your head that tells you your ideas aren't good enough, your words aren't good enough, you're no writer and so forth.”