“Do as you must -- you are not a child. But understand that there are many people willing to make your life more difficult. It is up to you to find a way to make things easier for yourself.”

“Fiction, if done right, can bridge cultural divides. Stories can be a footpath for a reader to step into another land and view its indigenous practices and beliefs through a local lens, instead of a telescope.”

“It felt good to sit around and agree, to have a common enemy and a shared struggle. It felt good to be understood.”

“Every promise we kept, every squeeze of the hand, every secretive smile we exchanged, every crying child we comforted- every one of those moments narrowed the distance between us.”

“Some would call that lucky but lucky is relative”

“Can a mother commit a greater sin than ignoring her intuitions?”

“Yes, well, people are very good at destroying things, good things.”

“The elderly become invisible sooner than we would hope.”

“Cornered mothers pray for strange things.”

“We all cross a hundred peaks to get even this far. And there will be more before we each make it to whatever God has fated for us.”

“What is gone is gone and will not come back. When the earth swallows, it swallows forever and we are left to stumble along feeling the absences. These are our burdens.”