Laurie Frankel: "Parenting always involves this balance..."

 "No matter the issue, parenting always involves this balance between what you know, what you guess, what you fear, and what you imagine. You're never certain, even (maybe especially) about the big deals, the huge, important ones with all the ramifications and repercussions. But alas, no one can make these decisions, or deal with their consequences, but you."

- from This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel (author's note)

Laurie Frankel: "... and if they could not entirely plan..."

 "... and if they could not entirely plan for who she might be two and ten and twenty years from now, they didn't need to. They could make hard decisions, together, when it was time to decide, and in the meantime, they could embrace what was now and what was good. They could be mindful of what was hard for everyone... the trouble all humans in the whole world had knowing who they were and what they needed and what would help the mysterious, unknowable, miraculous beings in their care."

- from This is How it Always Is by Laurie Frankel

John Irving: "There are few things..."

"There are few things as seemingly untouched by the real world as a child asleep."

—John Irving, A Widow for One Year

Maddie Dawson: "But why can't I..."

"But why can't I have it all - passion and motherhood and family?"

—Maddie Dawson, The Stuff That Never Happened

Maddie Dawson: "Is there anything more..."

"Is there anything more heart-wrenching than having your child weeping and thanking you for doing the very thing that you should and want to be doing?"

—Maddie Dawson, The Stuff That Never Happened

Maddie Dawson: "Oh, she had my..."

"Oh, she had my number, all right.  I wanted to indulge her every creative impulse and create the perfect safe, artistic world for her from the very moment she slid out of me and I discovered myself in possession of a daughter..."

—Maddie Dawson, The Stuff That Never Happened

Ganz & Mandel: "You know, when I..."

"You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster. Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride! I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it."

—Lowell Ganz & Babaloo Mandel, Character of Grandma, Parenthood (1989)