"Since graduating from HMS my greatest satisfaction has unequivocally been my family. My main disappointment is that I have wasted too much time in personal pursuits and been less of an influence for good than I might have been."

"In family matters you can get over anything. That's one thing you'll learn as an adult. There's a lot you have to learn which is a lot worse than that. You'd never think of forgiving a friend for some of the things your parents did to you. But with friends it's different. Friends aren't the roll of the dice."

"I’m not trying to—What do teenagers say nowadays?” he asked my grandmother.“Get all up in her biznez,” Nana said.Without cracking a smile.“That’s right,” he replied. “We’re not trying to get all up in your biznez, Ali."

"I have a 6-year-old niece who doesn't look like the majority of girls on the covers of magazines. I hope that by the time she's 16, the world will have changed."

"Yaicha is named after a songby some group from the last century called thePousette-Dart Band.Something about a girl, a candle in the falling rain shining amidst the pain.I kind of surprise myselfwhen I can picture Yaicha as that candle.My father named Yaicha after the 'haunting melody.'I wonder if he ever listenedto the lyrics."

"As a teacher myself I've been in situations where parents come at you, and sometimes parents come across like the teacher doesn't want the best for their kid and it can be really, really hurtful."

"It’s such a relief to know these are universal truths for so many of us in the adoption triad. Gosh, how much easier things could have been for you, for me, and your folks, if literature like this had been around, say, five, ten years ago, when we could’ve all really used it."

"To me, Slow parenting is about bringing balance into the home. Children need to strive and struggle and stretch themselves, but that does not mean childhood should be a race. Slow parents give their children plenty of time and space to explore the world on their own terms."

"My father was a professor of political science and also a young politician fighting for democracy in Kenya, and when things got ugly, he went into political exile in Mexico."

"The Hubbermanns had two of their own (children), but they were older and had moved out...Soon they would be both in the war. One would be making bullets. The other would be shooting them."