“Tortoise steps, slow steps, four steps like a tank with a tail dragging in the sand.Tortoise steps, land based, land locked, dusty like the desert tortoise herself, fenced in, a prisoner on her own reservation -- teaching us the slow art of revolutionary patience.”

“He stepped forward, took a deep breath, and doubled over in a sneezing fit. My werewolf was allergic to tortoises. Why me?”

“Think of it like running down a slope. If you attempt to slow down and choose your steps, you’re bound to trip up and stumble.”

“Faith is like stepping off a cliff and expecting one of two outcomes- you will either land on solid ground or you will be taught to fly.”

“Mary Hepburn was meanwhile murdering herself up in her room, lying on her bed with the polyethylene sheath of her "Jackie dress" swapped around her head. The sheath was now all steamed up inside, and she hallucinated that she was a great land tortoise lying on its back in the hot and humid hold of a sailing ship of long ago. She pawed the air in perfect futility, just as a land tortoise on its back would have done.As she had often told her students, sailing ships bound out across the Pacific used to stop off in the Galàpagos Islands to capture defenseless tortoises, who could live on their backs without food or water for months. They were so slow and tame and huge and plentiful. The sailors would capsize them without fear of being bitten or clawed. then they would drag them down to waiting longboats on the shore, using the animals' own useless suits of armor for sleds.They would store them on their backs in the dark paying no further attention to them until it was time for them to be eaten. the beauty of the tortoises to the sailors was that they were fresh meat which did not have to be refrigerated or eaten right away.”

“I'm beginning to perceive motherhood as a long, slow letting go, of which birth is just the first step.”