“And a mother without children is not a mother at all, and if I am not a mother, than I am nothing. Nothing. I am like sugar dissolved in a glass of water. Or, I am like salt, which disappears when you cook with it. I am salt. Without my children, I cease to exist.”
“I am afraid that my children won't think of me as anyone but their mother.”
“The Olinka girls do not believe girls should be educated. When I asked a mother why she thought this, she said: A girl is nothing to herself; only to her husband can she become something.What can she become? I asked.Why, she said, the mother of his children.But I am not the mother of anybody's children, I said, and I am something.”
“I am lost without you. I am soulless, a drifter without a home, a solitary bird in a flight to nowhere. I am all these things, and I am nothing at all. This, my darling, is my life without you. I long for you to show me how to live again.”
“I am not my mother. I love her, but I am not her.”
“Denial is an essential part of my existence. Without it, I am nothing.”