I am only strong enough for a life of partial virtue.

My grandma used to plant tomato seedlings in tin cans from tomato sauce & puree & crushed tomatoes she got from the Italian restaurant by her house, but she always soaked the labels off first. I don't want them to be anxious about the future, she said. It's not healthy.

When you start to crack open, don't waste a moment gathering your old self up into something like you knew before. Let your new self splash like sunlight into every dark place and laugh and cry and make sounds you never made & thank all that is holy for the gift.

She said she usually cried at least once each day not because she was sad, but because the world was so beautiful and life was so short.

In my dream the angel shrugged and said, if we fail this time, it will be a failure of imagination. And then she placed the world gently in the palm of my hand.

I once had a garden filled with flowers that grew only on dark thoughts, but they needed constant attention and one day I decided I had better things to do.

There has never been a day when I have not been proud of you, I said to my Son though some days I'm louder about other stuff so it's easy to miss that.