She caught herself working so hard at mothering that she forgot to enjoy her children. -from ~Homecoming Season~

She watched the gap between ship and shore grow to a huge gulf. Perhaps this was a little like dying, the departed no longer visible to the others, yet both still existed, only in different...

Already, Seattle is taking hold of her. She still holds Sedona in the dry tan of her skin and in her hair, but the fine mist of the Northwest is making its way to places...

She knew the soothing power of a human touch on aching flesh. Knew the strange bond that formed when two creatures united in mutual need, one hurting, the other healing.

She knew with painful certainty that the opposite of love was not hate, but indifference.

He could not name precisely the special quality she possessed. A glow. An exuberance. An aggressive and determined joy that gave her the courage to push past his defenses, to confront him with unflinching courage,...

Insults sting but a little when they stem from a man’s ignorance.

I see the way he looks at you when you’re not aware of his gaze. I see the way you care for him. And so when you think he wants you gone, it is not...

Fear and love were sometimes the same thing both necessary unavoidable. Now she understood that it was okay to bleed if you know how to heal.

You always look on the dark side of life. I believe in capturing the moment…Joy is so fleeting. You never know when it might be snatched away.

It isn’t fair, but maybe that’s the whole point. Fairness has no part in real life, and she took that lesson away from the Hotel Angeline with her.

at the center of every fairy tale lay a truth that gave the story its power.

An event in the present evokes past sensations. But science couldn’t explain how a foolish heart had the power to overrule common sense.

You’re never alone when you’re reading a book.

There can be no fooling ourselves into thinking this is something other than what it is—the willful ejection of Molly from our nest. It’s too late for second thoughts, anyway. She has to be moved...

There is something about losing your mother that is permanent and inexpressable – a wound that will never quite heal.

They like it here. There’s a poet, a couple of novelists, an opera librettist, an essay writer . . . . They don’t usually make much trouble.