“I didn’t even want to think about the preacher preaching about how God is in control of it all, or my mother, my sweet, sweet mother caught in the middle of it all. The referee who blows the whistle but is way too nice to call foul on anyone. That’s her. She just wants me to be okay. That’s it and that’s all.”
“See that’s where you’re wrong baby. When you find your man, it’s almost too easy. Gettin’ married and haven’ a mortgage, kids and a business to run and findin’ a way to stay love day in and day out, that’s the tougher part.”
“She took off Marc’s mosquito-proof armor.
She unfastened his mountain climbing equipment.
She ripped up the letters to the moon and the mean wind.
She sent the duck off to take a bath.
She took away the traps and the sticks.”
“Soon Marc called out for his mom again. ‘I’m afraid I’ll fall out of bed’, he told her. ‘Don’t worry my love,’ his mom answered. ‘I’ll fix that, and soon you’ll drift off to sleep.’ ”
“My dear, I really don’t know what else I can do to help you stop feeling so afraid. I think I’ll have to sit here next to you and you can tell me everything.”
Mom is always gribbling about pants on the floor and shoes on the sofa. She says, “This house doesn’t clean itself, you know.
“Who do you think does everything around here? “Mr. Nobody?
“I don’t get paid to pick up your smelly socks! If I did, I’d be a rich woman.” etc. etc. non stop.
“She gave him a pair of glasses with glow in the dark lenses and sent a letter to the moon. The letter said, ‘Moon, don’t even think about doing anything silly like melting or something.’ And then she left.”
“That’s what it was, because after school my mom took us all to the dentist and Dr. Fields found a cavity just in me. Come back next week and I’ll fix it, said Dr. Fields. Next week, I said, I’m going to Australia.”
“I really saw clearly, and for the first time, why a mother is really important. Not just because she feeds and also loves and cuddles and even mollycoddles a child, but because in an interesting and maybe an eerie and unworldly way, she stands in the gap. She stands between the unknown and the known.”
“This is the role of the mother. And in that visit I really saw clearly, for the first time, why a mother is really important. Not just because she feeds and also loves and also cuddles... but because in an interesting and and maybe an eerie and other worldly way, she stands in the gap. She stands between the unknown and the known.”
“I will look after you and I will look after anybody you say needs to be looked after, any way you say. I am here. I brought my whole self to you. I am your mother.”
“My mother’s gifts of courage to me were both large and small. The latter are woven so subtly into the fabric of my psyche that I can hardly distinguish where she stops and I begin.”
It starts as a realistic novel, describing the desolate situation of a boy trying to cope with severe dyslexia. But the author adds too many problems. His mom has left, his dad is an unreliable alcoholic, his teacher an unbelievably one-dimensional bully.