I honestly believe that people who never have children or never love a child are doomed to a sort of foolishness because it cant be described or explained, that love. I didnt know anything before I had him, and I havent learned anything since I lost him. Everything that isnt loving a child is just for show.

My mother was good at reading books, making cinnamon biscuits, and coloring in a coloring book. Also she was a good eater of popcorn and knitter of sweaters with my initials right in them. She could sit really still. She knew how to believe in God and sing really loudly. When she sneezed our whole house rocked. My father was a great smoker and driver of vehicles..He could hold a full coffee cup while driving and never spill a drop, even going over bumps. He lost his temper faster than anyone.

My favorite was Love Is...Never Having to Say You're Sorry. This was,the good Lord knew, a dream of mine. But every time I refused to apologize for something, Love seemed to just fly out the window.

Possibility, infinity, beauty -- none of those words were right. [...] What he really wanted to say was: have you felt this? this phantom life streaking like a phosphorescent hound at the edges of your ruin?

I honestly believe that people who never have children or never love a child are doomed to a sort of foolishness because it cant be described or explained, that love. I didnt know anything before I had him, and I havent learned anything since I lost him. Everything that isnt loving a child is just for show.

My hair looks like it had been purchased at a rummage sale after all the real hair was gone.

On the wall next to the table, next to the scones that provided each table with its own circle of lamplight were quotations about reading, her favorite of which was from Kafka: 'A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.