There are elements that determine paths taken, and we can seldom find them or point to them accurately, but I have sometimes thought how I would stay late at school, where it was warm, just to be warm.

I think he was too shy at first to hug me, so I hugged him, and imagined the warmth of his hand against the back of my head.

At times these days I think of the way the sun would set on the farmland around our small house in the autumn. A view of the horizon, the whole entire circle of it, if you turned, the sun setting behind you, the sky in front becoming pink and soft, then slightly blue again, as though it could not stop going on in its beauty, then the land closest to the setting sun would get dark, almost black against the orange line of horizon, but if you turn around, the land is still available to the eye with such softness, the few trees, the quiet fields of cover crops already turned, and the sky lingering, lingering, then finally dark. As though the soul can be quiet for those moments.

One can be ready to give up the children one always wanted, one can be ready to withstand remarks about one's past or one's clothes, but then -- a tiny remark and the soul deflates and says: "Oh." (16%)

Lonely was the first flavor I tasted in my life, and it was always there, hidden inside the crevices of my mouth, reminding me. (24%)

Once in a while I see a child crying with the deepest of desperation and I think it is one of the truest sounds a child can make. (34%)

There is this constant judgement in this world: How are we going to make sure we do not feel inferior to another? (44%)

This is a story about a mother who loves her daughter. Imperfectly. Because we all love imperfectly. (58%)

I kept thinking how the five of us had had a really unhealthy family, but I saw then too how our roots were twisted so tenaciously around another's hearts. (89%)

... I will grab myself and hurl onward through life, blind as a bat, but on I go! This is the ruthlessness, I think. (93%)

But I think I know so well the pain we children clutch to our chest, how it lasts our whole lifetime,with longing solarge you can't even weep. We hold it tight, we do, with each seizure of the beating heart. This is mine, this is mine, this is mine. (98%)