Quotes from Sue Monk Kidd

Mothergod, I have nothing to hold me. No place to be, inside or out. I need to find a container of support, a space where my journey can unfold.

If you don't know where you're going you should know where you come from

the egrets lifting out of the marxh carrying the light on their backs.

the Temple guard will most certainly arrest him. Jesus continues to believe God's kingdom can come without swords. But I am both a Cynic and a Zealot. I only know we cannot let this moment pass. If it is necessary, I will do what I must this Passover to ensure the masses rise up and overthrow the Romans at last. The sacrifice of one for many.

Miss Sarah never tattled. She tugged the rug over

It was like a stone that strikes against another stone that causes the entire mountain to fall.

the steamboat left the harbor and it was something in this world, the paddle thundering, the smokestack blowing, and people lined up on the top deck waving handkerchiefs. I watched it

I understand he has abandoned you, but must you abandon yourself?

Your vision means what you want it to mean. It will mean what you make it to mean. I stared at her, baffled, perturbed. Why would God send me a vision if it has no meaning other than what I give to it? What if the point of his sending it is to make you search yourself for the answer?

As I write, I sit in Lazarus's courtyard where your friend Tabitha is playing the lyre, filling the air with the sweetest of music. Jesus has gone to the Mount of Olives to pray. He has missed you, Ana. He bids me give you his love. We await you. Your brother, Judas 10th day of Shebat

Simone de Beauvoir was of the opinion that if, at menopause, a woman gives her "consent" to growing older, she is changed into a "different being," one who is more herself, one who is complete.

There were days that autumn when I had little energy to write or paint or even read. On days like that I felt like somebody had switched off the lights inside.

She was braver than I, she always had been. I cared too much for the opinion of others, she cared not a whit. I was cautious, she was brash. I was a thinker, she was a doer. I kindled fires, she spread them. And right then and ever after, I saw how cunning

I remember thinking: We've come to the split in the river. I felt, whether or not it was true, that my life would be decided now. It would rush one way or go the other.

The skies were bright cerulean, teeming with ferocious winds, spilling mallards and fat wood drakes from the clouds.

As I form the words, it seems entirely possible that what I wanted all along was to answer the question myself.

Each of us must turn inward and destroy in himself all that he thinks he ought to destroy in others."21

Once again we were in captivity.

I am the coming together and the falling apart

and longing. We slipped into Mother's room while she was occupied in the courtyard and lifted

Part of it was because I didn't know where this journey was taking me and I was scared, and part of it was due to the loss I was starting to feel inside

Do what you have to do, censure us, withdraw your support, we'll press on anyway. Now, sirs, kindly take your feet off our necks.

In writing The Invention of Wings, I was inspired by the words of Professor Julius Lester, which I kept propped on my desk: "History is not just facts and events. History is also a pain in the heart and we repeat history until we are able to make another's pain in the heart our own." ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My deepest thanks to . . .

and I suppose now that was part of the problem—my chronic inability to astonish myself.