“Death is no enemy, but the foundation of gratitude, sympathy, and art. Of all life's pleasures, only love owes no debt to death.”

“Zilpah had little use for men, whom she described as hairy, crude, and half human. Women needed men to make babies and to move heavy objects, but otherwise she didn't understand their purpose, much...”

“I would have stayed forever within the garden of Re-mose's childhood, but time is a mother's enemy.”

“The story it told was unremarkable: a tale of love found and lost- the oldest story in the world. The only story.”

“I could not get my fill of looking.There should be a song for women to sing at this moment or a prayer to recite. But perhaps there is none because there are no words strong enough to name that mom...”

“Why had no one told me that my body would become a battlefield, a sacrifice, a test? Why did I not know that birth is the pinnacle where women discover the courage to become mothers? But of course ...”

“One time, when I was little more than a baby, I was taken to visit my grandmother, who was living in a cottage on a nearly uninhabited stretch of beach in northern Florida. All I remember of this v...”

“A baby is a beautiful, blooming, flower that can smile, sing, and dance.”

“A baby is a symbol of peace, a plot of dreams, a light of hope, and a bundle of joy.”

“Death, taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them.”

“A child is conceived in a womb of a woman, miraculously, in sacred moment of conception.”

“War and marriage and childbirth had passed over her without touching any deep chord within her and she was unchanged.”

“But a far more virulent strain survived. It's having sex with your thoughts. You'll give birth to increasingly more monstrous ideas.”

“On first hearing that little voice as fine and friable, I felt, as cotton thread, the impact on my soul was that of the highest magnitude of earthquake, those that occur every hundred years, say, ...”

“On first hearing that little voice – as fine and friable, I felt, as cotton thread, the impact on my soul was that of the highest magnitude of earthquake, those that occur every hundred years, say,...”