TIME WENT ON, life with the children unfolding in its own ecosystem, small plastic toys seeming to grow up from the carpet like mushrooms, clothes falling to the floor like autumn leaves. Every once in a while she would blaze through the house and clean everything--at which point, the process would start all over.

— Erica Bauermeister

We’re all just ingredients. What matters is the grace with which you cook the meal.

— Erica Bauermeister

What did she do that made her happy? The question implied action, a conscious purpose. She did many things in a day, and many things made her happy, but that, Claire could tell, wasn’t the issue. Nor the only one, Claire realized. Because in order to consciously do something that made you happy, you’d have to know who you were. Trying to figure that out these days was like fishing on a lake on a moonless night—you had no idea what you would get.

— Erica Bauermeister

When a couple came to class together, it meant something else entirely - food as a solution, a diversion, or, occasionally, a playground.

— Erica Bauermeister

When Marion had been a teenager, she wanted a tattoo. As the oldest child who did mostly what was expected of her, she had been fascinated by the abandon tattoos implied, the willing, blind leap into commitment.

— Erica Bauermeister

When Sean died she understood for the first time how completely human beings were dependent upon a suspension of disbelief in order to simply move forward through their days. If that suspension faltered, if you truly understood, even if only for a moment, that human beings were made of bones and blood that broke and sprayed with the slightest provocation, and that provocation was everywhere--in street curbs and dangling tree limbs, bicycles and pencils--well you would fly for the first nest in a tree, run flat-out for the first burrow you saw.

— Erica Bauermeister

While the egg yolks cooled, he directed the beaters at the egg whites, setting the mixer on high speed that sent small bubbles giggling to the side of the bowl, where a few became many until they were a white froth rising up and then lying down again in patters and ridges, leaving an intricate design like the ribs of a leaf in the wake of the beaters

— Erica Bauermeister

You could never be certain what you would find in a book that had spent time with someone else.

— Erica Bauermeister

You know," Marion said, "I met a woman once when I was a teenager. I knew she had gone through a lot, but she was so strong, so compassionate. I asked her how she could be the way she was, and you know what she told me?" Hadley shook her head. "She said, 'You can be broken, or broken open. That choice is yours.

— Erica Bauermeister

You're not traveling if you already know everything.

— Erica Bauermeister