“For me, the sea was a great comfort, Pilar. But it made my children restless. It exists now so we can call and wave from opposite shores.”

“I resent the hell out of the politicians and generals who force events on us that structure our lives, that dictate the memories we'll have when we're old.”

“Santera was traditionally an unacknowledged and underappreciated aspect of what it meant to be Cuban. Yet the syncretism between the Yoruban religion that the slaves brought to the island and the C...”

“We speak in Spanish when we make love. English seems an impossible language for intimacy.”

“The war that killed my grandfather and great-uncles and thousands of other blacks is only a footnote in our history books.”

“There are white people who know how to act politely to blacks, but deep down you know they're uncomfortable. They're worse, more dangerous than those who speak their minds, because they don't know ...”

“The best music I have ever heard is the sound of my daughters giggling.”

“... He spoke in the deep tenderness of one about to leave his treasure amid perils and foes, where his remembered words would be the only aid he could bequeath to guide her.”

“Her laughter was my favorite symphony.”

“My mother... she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.”

“As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She is the beati...”

“It's not always easy being her daughter.' I think,' she said, 'sometimes it's hard no matter whose daughter you are.”

“Being a dad is quite rewarding and even magical at times. It is our greatest chance to do something right in our lives that will keep making the world a brighter place even generations after we are...”

“I always wondered why God was supposed to be a father," she whispers. Fathers always want you to measure up to something. Mothers are the ones who love you unconditionally, don't you think?”

“Sigmund Freud, the father of psychiatry and an atheist, theorized that ones attitude toward ones father largely shaped ones attitude toward God.”