“Then there are all of those children, the ones who arent resilient. The ones who slowly, quietly die. I think the difference is that the kids who bounce back learn to bear a little bit more than th...”

“I dont know what I would have done if they had hugged me. I probably would have frozen in place, become stiff. It took most of my life to overcome my distaste for physical contact and not to stiffe...”

“I hit him for every single thing that was wrong in my life and kicked him in a fierce fury of madness as he sobbed and covered his face and screamed. I hit him because Walter hit me and I hit him b...”

“I had decided that I wanted to earn my living as a writer and the only place in Waterbury where they paid you for writing was at the local newspaper. My opportunity came when the paper had an openi...”

“Imagine being beaten up every day for something you didnt do and yet, when its over, you keep on smiling. Thats what every day of Donalds life was like. His death was a small death. No one mourned ...”

“For the first time in my life, I was eating well and from platesglass plates, no less, not out of the frying pan because somebody lost all the plates in the last move. Now when we ate, we sat at a ...”

“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 ...”

“You are mine for a moment, but you are His, forever His.”

“I am here because I worked too hard and too long not to be here. But although I told the university that I would walk across the stage to take my diploma, I wont. At age fifty-seven, Im too damned ...”

“In foster care its easier to measure what youve lost over what you have gained, because it there arent many gains in that life and you are a prisoner to someone elses plans for your life.”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it sure makes the rest of you lonely.”

“For Beatrice, when we first met, I was lonely, and you were pretty.Now I am pretty lonely.”

“I missed him so much that it felt like a physical pain in the area below my ribs. I opened my mouth to accommodate it. I put my hand to it. A hollow, aching, piercing place.”