"My mother, Abra, had taught me that all people are made from the same dust. When our days here are gone, all men and women enter the same garden" (Chapter 1, p. 8).

"That's the way love sounds, my mother told me. You think it should feel like honey, but instead it cuts like a knife" (Chapter 2, p. 22).

As we were walking home, my mother told me that love was the same in any language" (Chapter 2, p. 27).

"Always look carefully, she told me. Look with more than your eyes" (Chapter 3, p. 30).

"But most important of all, she explained that it was all right to say No. I disagree. That was a gift. I understood it was power. The power to think my own thoughts. The power to believe in myself" (Chapter 3, p. 33).

"But a book is a book. Pages are pages. Hawks are hawks. Doves are doves. Hatred is always...