Breath, Eyes, Memory

I come from a place where breath, eyes, and memory are one, a place from which you carry your past like a hair on your head. Where women return to their children as butterflies or as tears in the eyes of the statues that their daughters pray to. (p234)

"...The things one does, one should do out of love." (chapter 17 p118)

"Do you see my granddaughter?...Isn't it a miracle that we can visit with all our kin, simply by looking into this face?" (chapter 14, p103)

'...She cannot stay out of duty. The things one does, one should do out of love.' (p155)

"I think it is very good that she has learned to read," I said. "It is her own freedom." (chapter 17 p118)

Tante Atie once said that love is like the rain. It comes in a drizzle sometimes. Then it starts pouring and if you're not careful it will drown you. (p91)

'It is the calm and silent waters that drown you...' (p172)

A flattened and drying daffodil was dangling off the little card that I had made my aunt Atie for Mother's Day. I pressed my palm over the flower and squashed it against the plain beige cardboard. (first lines)

'If a woman is worth remembering,' said my grandmother, 'there is no need to have her name carved in letters.' (p165)

That night, I slept hugging my secret. (p112)

"Only good deeds demand respect." (chapter 15, p110)