“I realize what a strange in-between place I am in. The Young Woman inside has turned to go, but the Old Woman has not shown up.”

“But I've discovered being a writer is an ongoing apprenticeship, just like everything else in life that matters to me-being a mother, a wife, a daughter, or simply a woman alive in the world, content to be myself. Today at thirty-two, I am glad to wake up each day and begin.”

“Ms. came into practice, to give a woman an alternative to being recognized by her marital status, and thereby known as herself. How do I want to be known.”

“Rebirth is almost impossible without the darkness.....I tell myself I am experiencing the death of myself as mother, the death of myself as a younger woman -- precious old lives going by the wayside. Of course, I should let myself grieve. To deny the grief is to squander a transforming and radiant possibility.”

“Yet I remember the rule I set for myself-that I do something different from my mother. . . I started to believe I couldn't really do that if I was following in the path of either of my parents... That so-called rule helped me separate more fully from my mother and father, I realize, but maybe it also kept me from seeing what was right in front of me. ”

“I wished she'd been smart enough, or loving enough, to realize everybody has burdens that crush them, only they don't give up their children.”

“I watched him, filled with tenderness and ache, wondering what it was that connected us. Was it the wounded places down inside people that sought each other out, that bred a kind of love between them?”