We stood and watched as God abandoned us, and then we did the best we could.

What you dream, you can grow. Someone told me that, but I didn't believe it. I said I had nothing and that people with nothing are unable to dream. But I was wrong.

My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage." - Aunt Frances

It doesn't matter what people tell you. It doesn't matter what they might say. Sometimes you have to leave home. Sometimes, running away means you're headed in the exact right direction.

When the cold comes to New England it arrives in sheets of sleet and ice. In December, the wind wraps itself around bare trees and twists in between husbands and wives asleep in their beds. It shakes the shingles from the roofs and sifts through cracks in the plaster. The only green things left are the holly bushes and the old boxwood hedges in the village, and these are often painted white with snow. Chipmunks and weasels come to nest in basements and barns; owls find their way into attics. At night,the dark is blue and bluer still, as sapphire of night.

Remember what I've told you. Remember me.

My mother, Abra, had taught me that all people are made from the same dust. When our days here are gone, all men and women enter the same garden.