After you get stung, you can't get unstung no matter how much you whine about it.

Actually, you can be bad at something...but if you love doing it, that will be enough. - August Boatwright

Novels attempt to render human experience; that's really all they are. They are meant to convey empathy for the character.

Elizabeth A. Johnson explains that including divine female symbols and images not only challenges the dominance of male images but also calls into question the structure of patriarchy itself.

And when you get down to it, Lily, that is the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love but to persist in love.

I marvel at how good I was before I met him, how I lived molded to the smallest space possible, my days the size of little beads that passed without passion through my fingers. So few people know what they're capable of. At forty-two I'd never done anything that took my own breath away, and I suppose now that was part of the problem - my chronic inability to astonish myself.

You forgive what you can, when you can. That's all you can do.To forgive does not mean overlooking the offense and pretending it never happened. Forgiveness means releasing our rage and our need to retaliate, no longer dwelling on the offense, the offender, and the suffering, and rising to a higher love. It is an act of letting go so that we ourselves can go on.