My mother raised me to be a writer.

I had come to a place where I was meant to be. I don't mean anything so prosaic as a sense of coming home. This was different, very different. It was like arriving at a place much safer than home.

I learned that if I could read, I could cook. I surprised myself I like it.

... the wing of a fly is proof enough of the existence of God for me.

My wound is geography. It is also my anchorage, my port of call.

There are no verdicts to childhood, only consequences, and the bright freight of memory.

Every woman I had ever met who walked through the world appraised and classified by an extraordinary physicality had also received the keys to an unbearable solitude. It was the coefficient of their beauty, the price they had to pay.