76 Quotes by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

  • Author Vanessa Diffenbaugh
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    I studied the way the individual flowers clustered around the single stalk, their sharp points fitting together like pieces of a puzzle. Something about the configuration of the petals made me believe that forgiveness should come naturally, but in this family, it hadn't. I thought about the decades of misunderstandings, from the yellow rose to the fire, the thwarted attempts at forgiving and being forgiven.

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  • Author Vanessa Diffenbaugh
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    Her eyes were open, taking in my tired face... Her face twitched into what looked like a squinty smile, and in her wordless expression I saw gratitude, and relief, and trust. I wanted, desperately, not to disappoint her.

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  • Author Vanessa Diffenbaugh
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    We replanted. The loss was substantial, but it was overshadowed completely by losing you.

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  • Author Vanessa Diffenbaugh
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    As she looked me up and down, I felt like a daughter returning from summer camp to a mother who had worried unnecessarily. Except instead of summer camp it had been my entire adolescence, emancipation, homelessness, and single parenthood, and I couldn't rightly say that Elizabeth's worry had been unwarranted

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  • Author Vanessa Diffenbaugh
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    When my hunger grew to the point of distraction, I climbed onto buses and rode to the Marina, Fillmore Street, or Pacific Heights. I toured high-end delis, lingering at polished marble countertops and sampling an olive, a slice of Canadian bacon, or a sliver of Havarti. I asked the questions Elizabeth would have asked: which olive oils are unfiltered; exactly how "fresh" was the albacore, the salmon, the sole; how sweet were the season's first blood oranges?

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