“It was my mother, Jayammal, who had me trained as a dancer despite strong family opposition.”

“I remember that my mother had once told me that the opposit of love isn't hate, it's indifference.”

“My parents were both born in Virginia of undistinguished families... My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks...”

“My mother used to tell me that when push comes to shove, you always know who to turn to. That being a family isn't a social construct but an instinct.”

“I think it was my grandmother who gave me my ease in being a woman. She was unquestionably feminine — small and dainty and pretty and wholly without masculine protest or feminist aggrievement. She had gone to college when this was a very unusual thing for a girl to do, she had a very firm grasp of anything she paid attention to, she had married and had a child, and she a career of her own. All this was true of my mother as well. But my mother was filled with passionate resentment about the condition of women, as perhaps my grandmother might have been had my grandfather lived and had she borne five children and had little opportunity to use her special gifts and training. As it was, the two women I knew best were mothers and had professional training. So I had no reason to doubt that brains were suitable for a woman. And as I had my father's kind of mind — which was also his mother's — I learned that the mind is not sex-typed.”

“That she learned ballet not with the idea of becoming a full-fledged dancer. It was just to train my body and more for the sheer joy of learning something beautiful.”

“The men in my family are strong because the women in my family kill and eat the weak ones.”

“My mother wore these in a relaxed, family context. It was a more informal side which of course had no reason to be seen or shown in other exhibitions.”

“A convicted felon who had strong family ties, a stake in the community, and an education might get probation, while a man who had few family ties, little stake in the community, and little education might draw a ten-year sentence for the same crime.”

“"Why did you marry me into this family, mother?" said Lipa.
"One has to be married, daughter. It was not us who ordained it."”