[My father] had spent his own short time like a priest in charge of a relic, forever expecting the blessed blood to liquefy.

I began to ration my writing, for fear I would dream through life as my father had done. I was afraid I had inherited a poisoned gene from him, a vocation without a gift.

It happened that at the late age of twenty-seven I had run away from home. High time, you might say; but rebels can't always be choosers.

My mother has lived every day of her life as if it were preparation for some kind of crisis.

If you listen at doors, you hear what you deserve.

She had the loaded handbag of someone who camps out and seldom goes home, or who imagines life must be full of emergencies.