“I hate the loss of diversity in the world, even though I sometimes get tired of embodying that diversity. I don't wish for anyone in particular to be gay, but the idea of no one being gay makes me miss myself already.”
“Books teach us things, teachers teach us books, and parents teach us alphabets. And they are all gods we can see, touch, feel and talk with.”
“We receive our inheritance the day we learn a skill from a parent. How we use that skill will determine how far we go!”
“When you're young, you think of your parents with the simplest adjectives. As you get older, you add more adjectives and notice some of them contradict each other. He's tall. He's tall and strong. He's tall and strong and smart. He's tall and strong and smart but busy. He's tall and strong and smart but busy and aloof and judgemental. She's safe. She's safe and kind. She's safe and kind and caring. She's safe and kind and caring but sad. She's safe and kind and caring but sad and lonely and brittle. Maturity colonizes your adolescent mind, like an ultraviolet photograph of a vast cosmic nebula that turns out, on closer examination, to be a pointillist self-portrait.”
Source: All Our Wrong Todays
“Down by the lake Portia saw the pale green of her mother’s gown. She was with Papa, of course, and as Portia watched, he pulled her into his arms. They must be kissing, though she couldn’t see that far in the hazy light. Their bodies were so close together that they looked like one person. There was something about the way Papa held their mother tightly, as if she were very precious, that made Portia happy down to the bottom of her stomach.
“What’s out there?” Emily said, coming up behind her. Portia pointed, even though ladies don’t point.
“Ridiculous,” Emily said with a huff of disgust. “That’ll end in another baby, mark my words, Portia.” And it did.”
Source: With This Kiss: Part Three
“And when I think my thinking rouses me to blame he who created me, And I gave peace to my children for they are in the bliss of the abyss
Which surpasses all the pleasures of the world,
And had they been born they would’ve endured misery”
Source: The Quatrains of Abu'l-Ala: Selected From His "Lozum-Ma-La-Yalzam" And "Sact-Uz-Zind" And Now First Translated Into English
“If it is your fault that your mother is miserable, it becomes a potentially fixable affront. Taking blame means that at least the hope of love is still there-all you have to do is deserve it.”
Source: When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life
“Many daughters live out their lives avoiding or abiding or arguing with their mothers-burying the long-ago injury or insult or childhood deprivation under a blanket of forgetfulness-and not confronting it head-on. It's humiliating to remember the ways in which one demeaned oneself in order to prevent being in a mother's bad graces, the willingness to do anything in order to not be rejected, when rejection felt like death.”
Source: When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life
“Another reason it's dangerous to acknowledge that you were unloved is that it implies the possibility that your mother may have been right-you are unlovable.”
Source: When You and Your Mother Can't Be Friends: Resolving the Most Complicated Relationship of Your Life
“Biology does not make a man a father--nor a woman a mother. We are what we do.”
Source: Another Chance to Get It Right