When a daughter loses a mother, the intervals between grief responses lengthen over time, but her longing never disappears. It always hovers at the edge of her awareness, prepared to surface at any time, in any place, in the least expected ways.

If you would reform the world from its errors and vices, begin by enlisting the mothers.

I don't have to have a child come from my womb to have a connection. Children that are already born are beautiful to me. I can definitely be a mother to them.

The simplest toy, one which even the youngest child can operate, is called a grandparent.

I tell the kids that, even in a childhood marked by despair and deprivation, I knew that no matter what happened, I still had my family, or at least the remnants of a family ripped apart by divorce and then glued back together in various odd arrangements through a series of ill- advised remarriages. It was good to know I had a solid foundation.

It's interesting when you're old enough to take a new, objective approach looking at your parents, frame them in a way where you are actually taking yourself out of the equation and just look at the things that are true about their life.