“I am buoyant and expansive and uncontainable--but I always was so, only I never knew it!”

“May your heart be mine, may my heart be yours. May your sorrows be mine, may my joys be yours.”

“Once I heard my mother say that each of us lives in a separate universe, one we have dreamed into being. We love pople when their dream coincides with ours, the way two cutout designs laid one on t...”

“The dream is not a drug but a way. Listen to where it can take you.”

“Because it is the lot of mothers to remember what no one else cares to, Mrs. Dutta thinks. To tell them over and over until they are lodged, perforce, in family lore. We are the keepers of the hear...”

“I want to weep too, not for me but for us all--for rich or poor, educated or illiterate, here we are finally reduced to a sameness in this sisterhood of deprivation.”

“That was when I saw their hate come out. They fought on the front lawn. Balloons and my birthday cake stood witness as I watched every regretful blow from my mother. I knew my sister was at war wit...”

“When someone hurts you over and over, ask yourself, WHY DO YOU LET THEM?”

“The causes of familial discord and distance are countless, but the results are often the same: secrecy, blame, sadness, hurt, confusion, and feelings of loss and grief.”

“Children betrayed their parents by becoming their own people.”

“But marrying within one's own family can get monotonous. One has heard all the same family stories, knows all the jokes and all the same recipes. No novelty.”

“She took comfort in the familiarity of his smell, knowing that if she lost all her possessions and her home, at least she would have her family.”

“Getting my legal situation fixed takes a bit longer than we all thought: twelve years to be exact. Not a big deal. Only most of my life.”

“For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across oceans in search of a new life.”

“Also for there had been more than a few migrants aboard, yes, quite a quantity of wives who had been grilled by reasonable, doing-their-job officials about the length of and distinguishing moles u...”