She was forever tilted sideways by the notion that pain was inevitable, chance was cruel, and all human ingenuity should go towards the making of a good cup of tea.

I sit there thinking about how much courage it takes to live an ordinary life.

Stories are the best democracy we have. We are allowed to become the other we never dreamed we could be.

Women get the short shrift in history. It's been largely written and dictated by men, or at least men believe that we own it, and women have really been in those quieter moments at the edge of history. But, really, they're the ones who are turning the cogs and the wheels and allowing things like the peace process to happen.

This is not my life. These are not my cobwebs. This is not the darkness I was designed for.

He looks like the sort of man who can't afford to leave, and doesn't want to stay, and so he is doing both at once.

That was the sort of everyday love I had to learn to contend with: if you grow up with it, it's hard to think you'll ever match it. I used to think it was difficult for children of folks who really loved each other, hard to get out from under that skin because sometimes it's just so comfortable you don't want to have to develop your own.