“Motherhood isn't soft and cozy and sweet; it's selfish ferocity, red in tooth and claw.”

“It's not the fledgling birds that are thrown out of the nest by their parents and made to fly; it's the parents who are made to get the hell out of cozy family nest by their teenage offspring. It's we who are made to be independent of them, crash-landing if we don't manage it.”

“I'm a sliver-thin light, diamond sharp, that can slip through gaps in the world we know. I will come into your dreams and speak soft words when you think of me. There is no happy ever after - but there is an afterwards.This isn't our ending.”

“A selfish person can still love someone else, can't they? Even when they've hurt them and let them down.”

“Sleep, baby, sleepYour father tends the sheepYour mother shakes the dreamland treeAnd from it fall sweet dreams of theeSleep, baby, sleep.”

“I threw everything we had together - the strong roots and stems and leaves and beautiful soft blossoms of sisterhood - into the earth with you. And I was left standing on the edge, so diminished by the loss that I thought I could no longer be there.”

“My job isn't to go around judging people. Priests are meant to teach love and forgiveness. That to me is the essence of being a Christian. And trying to find that love and forgiveness in ourselves and others every day should be a challenge that we want to achieve.”