Her purse was a weight, ballast; it tethered her to the earth as her mind floated away.

We want a sense that an important character, like a narrator, is reliable. We want to believe that a character is not playing ages or being coy or being manipulative, but is telling the truth to the best of his or her ability...We do not wish to be crudely manipulated...We want to be massaged by a masseur, not whapped by a carpet beater.

We can't understand when we're pregnant, or when our siblings are expecting, how profound it is to have a shared history with a younger generation: blood, genes, humor. It means we were actually here, on Earth, for a time - like the Egyptians with their pyramids, only with children.

After a while the middle-aged person who lives in her head begins to talk to her soul, the kid.

I do not at all understand the mystery of grace - only that it meets us where we are but does not leave us where it found us.

The opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s certainty.

Love falls to earth, rises from the ground, pools around the afflicted. Love pulls people back to their feet. Bodies and souls are fed. Bones and lives heal. New blades of grass grow from charred soil. The sun rises.