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

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)