Fathers never have exactly the daughters they want because they invent a notion a them that the daughters have to conform to.

MY MOTHER GETS DRESSEDIt is impossible for my mother to do eventhe simplest things for herself anymoreso we do it together,get her dressed.I choose the clothes withoutzippers or buckles or straps,clothes that are simplebut elegant,...

As mothers and daughters, we are connected with one another. My mother is the bones of my spine, keeping me straight and true. She is my blood, making sure it runs rich and strong. She...

It’s not always easy being her daughter.’ I think,’ she said, ‘sometimes it’s hard no matter whose daughter you are.

No, I`m putting it away, trying to buy a house for my family. The goal is to use the money to move into a big house, so my daughter can have a garden.

I’d grown up hearing stories about the special hazards that girls faced. I knew where the bodies were found: naked on beaches or cut into pieces, parts frozen in freezers or buried in cement. These...

oh. she heard it too-no waters coursing, canyon empty, sun soundless- and the beast your life nowhere hiding (p. 103)

And no invader has ever conquered the heart of Poland, that spirit which is the inheritance of sons and daughters, the private passion of families and the ancient, unbreakable tie to all those who came...

I’m sorry you don’t like coming back here,” her mother often said, to cap whatever petty dust-up they’d had. How could Emily explain: it wasn’t her mother or Kersey she’d disowned, but her earlier self,...

What their scorned, over-fucked mothers never teach them is this: men can be hurt, too.

I hope someday she meets just the right man and has babies – a whole passel of babies, more than I could have – so she understands how it kills me now that she won’t...

The people that truly love us in life don’t fight for us to remain a doormat for others.

Your mother said that Fraser sent her back to me, knowing that I would protect her–and you. … And like him, perhaps I send you back, knowing—as he knew of me–that he will protect you...

I don’t need to kill goats to say things. I CAN talk.

blue-gold sky, fresh cloud, emerald-black mountain, trees on rocky ledges, on the summit, the tiny pin of a telephone tower-all brilliantly clear, in shadow and out. and on and through everything everywhere the sun shines...

Doomed to Hell. Every last one of you.

You come from your mauma, you sleep in the bed with her till you’re near twenty years grown, and you still don’t know what haunches in the dark corners of her.

Do not forget to tell your daughters God made them beautiful.

My mother… she is beautiful, softened at the edges and tempered with a spine of steel. I want to grow old and be like her.

They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been he would have been interested in her just because of that, and curious, but their common...

The more a daughter knows about the details of her mother’s life – without flinching or whining – the stronger the daughter.

But can I say, now that she is dead, long dead that I only half believed in her. I wanted, I needed her to revolt. I know, revolutions take vast energy like volcanic eruptions. I...

In many ways we are all sons and daughters of ancient Greece.

…gripping the rim of the sink you claw your way to stand and cling there, quaking with will, on heron legs, and still the hot muck pours out of you. (p. 27)

If daughters couldn’t soften a man, then nothing would.

Ever since Two Daughters I’ve been composing my own music.

This is a perfectly good picture. And if I didn’t know you, I would be impressed and charmed. But I do know you.”He thought some more, wondering whether he dared say precisely what he felt,...

What I really want to tell him is to pick up that baby of his and hold her tight, to set the moon on the edge of her crib and to hang her name up...

This was why Kiki had dreaded having girls: she knew she wouldn’t be able to protect them from self-disgust.

He was too smitten by his second wife and the sons she produced easily and regularly at eighteen-month intervals to bother too much about a daughter.

I am thinking about the way that life can be so slippery; the way that a twelve-year-old girl looking into the mirror to count freckles reaches out toward herself and that reflection has turned into...

If you saw one salvage spark in Donald Young’s relationship with his two daughters, you can decide to spare his life.

It’s nice to meet you, officially.

I’ve got daughters almost as old as some of these guys,

She serves me a piece of it a few minutesout of the oven. A little steam risesfrom the slits on top. Sugar and spice -cinnamon – burned into the crust.But she’s wearing these dark glassesin...

They are the greatest curse of all great men, daughters

Young girls are like helpless children in the hands of amorous men, whatever is said to them is true and whatever manipulation on their bodies seems like love to them, sooner or later, they come...