All these people keep waxing sentimental about how fabulously well I am doing as a mother, how competent I am, but I feel inside like when you're first learning to put nail polish on your right hand with your left. You can do it, but it doesn't look all that great around the cuticles.

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

You can either set brick as a laborer or as an artist. You can make the work a chore, or you can have a good time. You can do it the way you used to clear the dinner dishes when you were thirteen, or you can do it as a Japanese person would perform a tea ceremony, with a level of concentration and care in which you can lose yourself, and so in which you can find yourself.

You can either practice being right or practice being kind.

Don't look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.

You have to be a warrior and say, "Maybe it's everyone else's system, but it's not mine." (from her recent interview here, on Goodreads)

For some of us, good books and beautiful writing are our ultimate solace, even more comforting than exquisite food.