I was kind of an outsider growing up, and I preferred reading to being with other kids. When I was about seven, I started to write my own books. I never thought of myself as wanting to be a writer – I just was one. Ann Hood Read Quote
I was a mother who worked ridiculously hard to keep catastrophe at bay. I didn’t allow my kids to eat hamburgers for fear of E. coli. I didn’t allow them to play with rope, string, balloons – anything that might strangle them. They had to bite grapes in half, avoid lollipops, eat only when I could watch them. Ann Hood Read Quote
I was a daughterless mother. I had nowhere to put the things a mother places on her daughter. The nail polish I used to paint our toenails hardened. Our favorite videos gathered dust. Her small apron was in a box in the attic. Her shoes – the sparkly ones, the leopard rain boots, the ballet slippers – stood in a corner. Ann Hood Read Quote
Everyone has read about or knows someone who has gone through fertility treatments. It is an emotional nightmare, fueled by false hope and the promise of a treatment that will work. Ann Hood Read Quote
We were a family that made our Halloween costumes. Or, more accurately, my mother made them. She took no suggestions or advice. Halloween costumes were her territory. She was the brain behind my brother’s winning girl costume, stuffing her own bra with newspapers for him to wear under a cashmere sweater and smearing red lipstick on his lips. Ann Hood Read Quote
As an adult, I took ballet classes three times a week, and I believed it gave me better posture, a stronger body, and made me more graceful. Ann Hood Read Quote
Dead bodies do get a grayish blue/purple hue because blood pools in the capillaries and the body starts to decompose. It’s not smurf blue, but it’s not a pleasant shade. Ann Hood Read Quote
When I did get married and then had children, it was Beatles’ songs I sang to them at night. As one of the youngest of 24 cousins, I had never held an infant or baby-sat. I didn’t know any lullabies, so I sang Sam and Grace to sleep with ‘I Will’ and ‘P.S. I Love You.’ Ann Hood Read Quote
When we deal with death, the pupils will always be fixed and dilated, which indicates that there is no longer brain activity or response. Ann Hood Read Quote
