Now, if you ask me, what’s going on is that we’re all up to here in it, and probably the most important thing is that we not yell at one another.

Jealousy has always been my cross, the weakness and woundedness in me that has most often caused me to feel ugly and unlovable, like the Bad Seed.

If you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.

Sometimes grace is a ribbon of mountain air that gets in through the cracks.

He got me a cup of tea with honey, toast with honey, yogurt with honey, like I was John the Baptist with the flu.

I was raised in a family where none of us ever raised a voice, so there was no room to express feelings of rage or even unabashed joy - a little bashed joy, here or there, or being mildly disgruntled.

Toni Morrison said, "The function of freedom is to free someone else," and if you are no longer wracked or in bondage to a person or a way of life, tell your story. Risk freeing someone else. Not everyone will be glad that you did. Members of your family and other critics may wish you had kept your secrets. Oh, well, what are you going to do?