Susan Heavilon

“How I picture it: We are all nesting dolls, carrying the earlier iterations of ourselves inside. We carry the past inside us. We take ourselves—all of our selves—wherever we go.”
― Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

“unloved, educated or illiterate, wanted or unwanted by her parents, whether or not she suffered hurt and betrayal, or whether she still managed to retain her humanity and nobility? In the end, Bhima thinks, it doesn’t matter. It is all ash and dust. This is what it means to be human, she thinks: grains of dust arranged in human form—some dark, some light, some tall, some short, some male, some female. And in the end, the same gust of wind breaks them all down.”
― Thrity Umrigar, The Secrets Between Us

“French Braid reveals the gentle realities of family ties that constrict and those that fall apart altogether, while the daily hum of diligence and possibility reverberates in the background.”
― Anne Tyler, French Braid

“Old friends remind us of who we were and what we’ve become. New friends hint at who we could be and inspire us to move forward. We need both, the new and old, the grounding of the past and hope for the future, because life is terrible and wonderful all at once, and too hard to face alone.”
― Marie Bostwick, The Restoration of Celia Fairchild