“When I need it, I can call bitterness around me like mail armor, every thought a knot of steel, shielding the tenderness I have learned to hide as a daughter, mother, wife, and queen among warriors.”

“I have learned that the love a mother has for her child is unique among human emotions. Every mother knows this insticntively, but that doesn't mean it doesn't need articulating.”

“I have my booksAnd my poetry to protect me;I am shielded in my armor,Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.I touch no one and no one touches me.I am a rock,I am an island.”

“...with every step I thought of my mother's courage as she faced her judges. With every step I thought of her cleaving to the truth even as she fell the short distance of the rope. With every step I thought of her pride, her strength, her love. And with every step I thought, I am my mother's daughter, I am my mother's daughter...”

“What if I they didn't call me the Evil Queen, would you have thought of me as an angel?”

“I took a step. And then another. And so it went as we followed Father, who had come to take us forever away from Salem. And with every step I thought of my mother's courage as she faced her judges. With every step I thought of her cleaving to the truth even as she fell the short distance of the rope. With every step I thought of her pride, her strength, her love.And with every step I thought, I am my mother's daughter, I am my mother's daughter...”