Quotes from Alyson Richman

Cuando todo el mundo está convencido que habrá de morir pronto, un cuerpo cálido, un corazón que palpita los puede llevar a hacer cosas que jamás hubieran contemplado con anterioridad.

Everything of value contains a story, Solange.

The flapping of a butterfly's wings in the rain forest can alter a hurricane hundreds of miles in the distance. Isn't it amazing that something so small can change the outcome of another thing so far away?

You hear in the person you're destined to love the sound of those yet to be born.

He laughs. And in his laugh I hear bliss. I hear feet dancing, the rush of skirts twirling. The sound of children. Is that the first sign of love? You hear in the person you're destined to love the sound of those yet to be born.

a pesar del aislamiento de nuestras propias vidas, siempre seguimos conectados con nuestros ancestros; nuestros cuerpos guardan los recuerdos de aquellos que nos antecedieron, sea en los rasgos que heredamos o en una disposición que está grabada en nuestras almas.

Le dije a mi hija, la primera vez que experimentó amor, que no tratara de aprisionarlo. —Piensa que estás en un cálido estanque en verano —le dije—, con círculos concéntricos a tu alrededor. Rayos dorados de sol inundan tu cabello, acarician tu cara. Inhálalo, respíralo; jamás te dejará.

amas como si tuvieras alas, siempre sentirás la emoción de estar suspendido en pleno vuelo.

Y las palabras que ella me dijo hicieron eco en mis oídos: "Cada libro tiene un viaje propio".

Inside, I had a pit in my stomach. What had the world become that children were now discussing their own death, as though it were a menu option? As I looked around and saw the blank faces clustered amongst us, I realized that our emotions might be the first thing we are forced to abandon in war. That the numbness that engulfed our senses was the only way we could sustain ourselves against all the chaos.

anxiously for the two days in between. But the

He laughs. And in his laugh I hear bliss. I hear feet dancing, the rush of skirts twirling. The sound of children. Is that the first sign of love? You hear in the person you're destined to love the sound of those yet to be born.

And I saw for the first time how, despite the isolation of our own lives, we are always connected to our ancestors; our bodies hold the memories of those who came before us, whether it is the features we inherit or a disposition that is etched into our soul.

She always told us there were two types of women. Those who are lit from the outside and those who are lit from within. The first needs the shimmer of a diamond to maker her sparkle, but for the other, her beauty is illuminated through the sheer light of her soul.

In my old age, I have come to believe that love is not a noun but a verb. An action. Like water, it flows to its own current. If you were to corner it in a dam, true love is so bountiful it would flow over. Even in separation, even in death, it moves and changes. It lives within memory, in the haunting of a touch, the transience of a smell, or the nuance of a sigh. It seeks to leave a trace like a fossil in the sand, a leaf burning into baking asphalt.

If those we love visit us when we dream, those who torment us almost always visit us when we're still awake.

There was also something about the smell of bookshops that was strangely comforting to her. She wondered if it was the scent of ink and paper, or the perfume of binding, string, and glue. Maybe it was the scent of knowledge. Information. Thoughts and ideas. Poetry and love. All of it bound into one perfect, calm place.

You hear in the person you're destined to love the sound of those yet to be born.

To those who believe the dead do not visit them, I say you have cataracts in your soul. I am a man of science, yet I believe in guardian angels and the haunting by ghosts.

The mind, the heart, the womb. Those three are all threaded in a sacred dance. A woman's pelvis is like an hourglass with the capacity to tell time. It both creates and shelters life. When a mother's diet in insufficient, nutrients are pulled from her own teeth and bone. Women are built to be selfless.

We wore that grief like one wears one's underclothes. An invisible skin, unseen to prying eyes, but knitted to us all the same. We wore it every day.

There are two sensations of skin you will always remember in your lifetime; the first time you fall in love-and that person holds your hand-and the first time your child grasps your finger. In each of those times, you are sealed to the other for eternity.

A woman who loves books has a dreamer's soul, with each story she has read woven into her own.

You will never be lonely with a book at your side