“Perhaps the unattached, the unwanted, the unloved, could grow to give love as lushly as anyone else.”

“If it was true that moss did not have roots, and maternal love could grow spontaneously, as if from nothing, perhaps I had been wrong to believe myself unfit to raise my daughter. Perhaps the unattached, the unwanted, the unloved, could grow to give love as lushly as anyone else.”

“Anyone can grow into something beautiful.”

“Common thistle is everywhere,” she said. “Which is perhaps why human beings are so relentlessly unkind to one another.”

“This time, there was no escape, I could not turn away, could not leave without accepting what I had done. There was only one way to the other side, and that was through the pain.”

“I would learn to love her like a mother loves a daughter, imperfectly and with out roots.”

“Over time, we would learn each other and I would learn to love her like a mother loves a daughter, imperfectly and without roots.”