"Who am I to claim such boundless sorrow? This heartache, acute and true as it may be, is slight compared to all of this world. Five miscarriages, two stillborn, three live births, and Mrs. Connor is o..."
- Eowyn Ivey
"She had watched other women with infants and eventually understood what she craved: the boundless permission-no, the absolute necessity- to hold and kiss and stroke this tiny person. Cradling a swaddl..."
"What is it that causes us to fall in love? We are met with those first, initial glimpses-- a kind of curiosity, a longing for that which is both familiar and unknown in the other. And then comes the s..."
"You did not have to understand miracles to believe in them, and in fact Mabel had begun to suspect the opposite. To believe, perhaps you had to cease looking for explanations and instead hold the litt..."
"The exact science of one molecule transformed into another -- that Mabel could not explain, but then again she couldn't explain how a fetus formed in the womb, cells becoming beating heart and hoping ..."
"Everywhere, even in the blackest abyss, he believed one might witness the divine. The shadows and contrast―absence itself―as important as the light and marble, for one cannot exist without the other."
"He stood there a moment, listened to the creek, and let the mountain air blow against his face. Even with all this heartache, it was beautiful here."