And she is going to dance, dance hungry, dance full, dance each cold astonishing moment, now when she is young and again when she is old.

[S]he believed that the Buddhists were right–that if you want, you will suffer; if you love, you will grieve. (68)

There is ecstasy in paying attention. You can get into a kind of Wordsworthian openness to the world, where you see in everything the essence of holiness.

A nun I know once told me she kept begging God to take her character defects away from her. After years of this prayer, God finally got back to her: I'm not going to take anything away from you, you have to give it to Me.

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

You have to make mistakes to find out who you aren’t.

I don't have any romantic views of parenting. Every step of the way it's really hard. It's a dangerous world, physically and psychologically.