Quotes from Sue Monk Kidd

and I'd be overcome by the little river of sparks that seemed to run beneath all that, the blood/sap/wine, aliveness, whatever it was. It had made me feel bereft over the immensity of the world, the extraordinary things people did with their lives- though, really, I didn't want to do any of those particular things. I didn't know then what I wanted, but the ache for it was palpable.

We must let life be life.

A 'woman on the loose' is a woman who leaves the woods where she has been growing strong all these years. She swoops out of trees, ringing her bell. She is saying, I am here now. And I am not going away. The motto that the women on the loose adopted is: 'To improvise, surprise, and come uninvited.

To avoid a fear emboldens it.

When I was nine, I discovered God's secret name: I Am Who I Am. I thought it was the truest, most wondrous name I'd ever heard.

You speak as if God was white and Southern! As if we somehow owned his image. You speak like a fool. The Negro is not some other kind of creature than we are. Whiteness is not sacred, Mary! It can't go on defining everything.

Most everyone has a private torment, some voracious badger that gnaws at them without ceasing

Some part of you might die and a new self will rise up to take its place.

to hold opposing ideas in my head without conflict.

I realized that lacking the feminine, the language had communicated to me in subtle ways that women were nonentities, that women counted mostly as they related to men.

large wave unexpectedly knocked me off and shoved me under. Before I could surface, another wave pushed me down, then another. But this is not a game. This is my life. The darkness tunneling back and back. I could lose myself to depression.

ecological self"—a term author Joanna Macy uses to describe one who has conquered the personal ego and knows that she or he is not separate from anything else.

There was Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, who was raped by Shechem. Tamar, the daughter of King David, raped by her half brother.

our culture, even the culture of our faith, has helped anesthetize the feminine spirit.

No," I said, too quickly. I had an outstanding talent for committing deceit, but none for hiding it.

No one had avenged the unnamed concubine. Jacob did not seek vengeance on Shechem. King David did not punish his son.

Naturally, arranging a marriage between two families separated by a chasm like this would've been impossible unless the bride possessed extraordinary beauty or the groom bore some bodily defect.

even God should be allowed to change his mind. "Why should God's perfection be based on having an unchanging nature?" I asked. "Isn't flexibility more perfect than stasis?

Already his features had dimmed a little in my mind. It terrified me, this slow disappearing.

Mary laughed. Then we all laughed. There was a vast relief in it, as if the air had grown more spacious. Was laughter grieving, too?

A marriage or any relationship between partners is meant to be created and then re-created. It is an edifice a couple builds until the day the edifice can no longer hold them and they must bring it down and start again from scratch. And without any of the old assumptions. It's exactly like Carolyn Heilbrun says, all good marriages are remarriages.

And it was, but I could feel the tiny lump of anger tucked beneath my awe. A half million scrolls and codices were within these walls, and all but a handful were by men. They had written the known world.

After my first winter in the North, I had an entirely new appreciation for heat.

One night sitting beside the Greek shore, Shirley thinks to herself, I've allowed myself to lead this little life when inside me there is so much more...That's where Shirley Valentine disappeared to. She got lost in all this unused life.