They finished laughing and caught their breaths, and looked at each other, and Ani thought Geric looked at her too long, as though he forgot he was looking, as though he did not wish to do anything else. She looked back. Her took heart took its time quieting down.

There's nothing more aggravating in the world than the midnight sniffling of the person you've decided to hate.

She touched the healthy folds of skin around the baby's neck, wrists, and thighs, the dark lines crying for life made in his forehead, and thought how people start with wrinkles and end with wrinkles, grow into their skin and then live to grow out of it again.

Here's the thing about home: you can create it most anywhere, as long as you gather your people around you.

My ma says a rock lasts forever, but people don’t, and that’s what makes them more precious.

She put a wedge beside my heart And then she brought the mallet down She sang no song to guide her work I lost my heart without a sound

Just like the old adage--what you dislike most in other people is what you dislike the most in yourself--