“Women piece together their lives from the scraps left over for them.”

“You'll have to make do with the story instead, pieced together from the scraps of old lives. That is all I have.”

“Dear Lord...patch this work. Quilt us together, feather-stitching piece by piece our tag-ends of living, our individual scraps of love”

“The union of their shared lives could be a masterpiece, even if the colors of one piece clashed with another, even if uneven stitches showed, even if, from time to time, they had to pick out seams, realign the pieces, and sew them back together again. It would not be perfect, but it could be beautiful, if they worked together and persevered.”

“I think, writing-wise, I am probably more of a quilter than a weaver because I just get a little scrap here and a little scrap there and sew them together.”

“By the time this damn war's over, we'll have hundreds of thousands of severely traumatized soldiers trying to put the pieces of their lives back together.”