12 Quotes by Brenda Shaughnessy

How anyone becomes herself/is a mystery.

be strange to yourselfin your love, your grief

I've been melted into somethingtoo easy to spill. I make moreand more of myself in orderto make more and more of the baby. He takes it, this making. And somehowhe's made more of me, too.

Isn’t blood awoman’s ink?

When a woman you love hits youon the head with a bookyou love, is that love?

Secret, smug believers! God never gives youmore than you can bear, they like to say, as ifthe strong should be punished for their strength:We can bear it. So we got it.But what about my baby? How weak doesa newborn have to be to escape God's burdens?

All gifts are riddles, all lives/are in the middle of mother-lives.

I came to see that what constitutes strength is not just a muscle or will. It can also include the most desperate vulnerability, the saddest heartache, the lightest, sweetest laughter.

Strength means honoring your entire range of emotion, even your despair and heartbreak.