“I'm beginning to think that maybe it's not just how much you love someone. Maybe what matters is who you are when you're with them.”

“It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.”

“I've never quite believed that one chance is all I get”

“My cousin Roger once told me, on the eve of his third wedding, that he felt marriage was addictive. Then he corrected himself. I mean early marriage, he said. The very start of a marriage. It's lik...”

“Ah, God, it's barbaric, however you look at it,' he told Ruth.'What, cremation?' she asked.'Death.”

“The one ironclad rule is that I have to try. I have to walk into my writing room and pick up my pen every weekday morning.”

“A DEFINITION NOT FOUND IN THE DICTIONARY Not leaving: an act of trust and love,often deciphered by children”

“The ideal-worker standard and norm of work devotion push mothers to the margins of economic life. And a society that marginalizes its mothers impoverishes its children. That is why the paradigmatic...”

“When God Created Mothers"When the Good Lord was creating mothers, He was into His sixth day of "overtime" when the angel appeared and said. "You're doing a lot of fiddling around on this one." And ...”

“At one point in your life you have to decide whether you want to become a sachem or a solitary.”

“I fix my grandchildren's computers.”

“My grandchildren are fabulous and funny.”

“Rosy waited as long as she dared then sat forward and let her eye rove Frannys lounge, up and down the shelves, looking for something, not even sure she could bring herself to act if she saw it aga...”

“Over the water of time I call to youIn a language I do not know.”

“Grandmam came back from that distance in time that separates grandmothers from their grandchildren and made herself a mother to me.”