She wondered if this was true of every parent: if, prior to having children, they all used to be someone else.

I wish I could tell him I understand: the higher you raise your hopes, the farther you have to fall.

Love was that way. You could not render it in black or white. It always came down to the strange, blended shades of grey.

A place like this wears down everything, and tolerance is no exception. In here, coexistence passes for forgiveness. You do not learn to like something you abhor; you come to live with it...You live and let live, and eventually that becomes enough.

In the English language there are orphans and widows, but there is no word for the parents who loses a child.

You can make it dark, but I can't make it light.

Real mothers don't just listen with humble embarrassment to the elderly lady who offers unsolicited advice in the checkout line when a child is throwing a tantrum. We take the child, dump him in the lady's cart, and say, "Great. Maybe you can do a better job." Real mothers know that it's okay to eat cold pizza for breakfast. Real mothers admit it is easier to fail at this job than to succeed.