The past is history. The future is a mystery. The present is a gift.

You [meaning mothers] said good-bye a little every day -- from the minute they left your body until they left your home.

I don't think of my characters as people I create, I think of them more as people I have met and whom I'm exploring on the page. I don't actually think of myself as having 'created' any of these people.

Writers are first and foremost observers. We lose ourselves in the watching and then the telling of the world we find. Often we feel on the fringes, in the margins of life. And that's where we belong. What you are a part of, you cannot observe.

When you love someone, it doesn't really matter if they love you back or not. Having love in your heart for someone is its own reward. or punishment, depending on the circumstances.

You can cut the ties that bind but not without losing a part of yourself. You can walk away and hide from the people who made you, but you'll always hear them calling your name.

It's strange how memory gets twisted and pulled like taffy in its retelling, how a single event can mean something different to everyone present.