When faced with a crisis, do three things: breathe, pray and be kind.

This is one thing they forget to mention in most child-rearing books, that at times you will just lose your mind. Period.

The last song was so deep and raw and pure that I could not escape. It was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices or something was rocking me in its bosom, holding me like a scared kid, and I opened up to that feeling-and it washed over me.

Looking back on the God my friend believed in, he seems a little erratic, not entirely unlike her father - God as borderline personality.

Toddlers can make you feel as if you have violated some archaic law in their personal Koran and you should die, infidel.

Part of me loves and respects men so desperately, and part of me thinks they are so embarrassingly incompetent at life and in love. You have to teach them the very basics of emotional literacy. You have to teach them how to be there for you, and part of me feels tender toward them and gentle, and part of me is so afraid of them, afraid of any more violation.

Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious.