Gauntlets are the stuff of every life, but when you learn young how to pick them up, how to work them against the demons, and finally how to outlast …

- Marlena De Blasi

There isn't an agony in the world more powerful than tenderness

- Marlena De Blasi

Some people are born empty. All manner of good deeds and patience and loving kindness can't even begin to fill them up.

- Marlena De Blasi

We accumulate pain, collect it. ... We display it, stack it up into a pile, then we stack it up into a mountain, so we can climb up onto it, waiting …

- Marlena De Blasi

Living as a couple never means that each gets half. You must take turns at giving more than getting. It’s not the same as a bow to the other whether …

- Marlena De Blasi

I run down to meet Floriana who is breathless from her hike. She stops in the road, the last light at her back. Prickles of rain cling to her unkerch…

- Marlena De Blasi

most crimes are connected to hunger. One hunger or another.

- Marlena De Blasi

Much of my crying is for joy and wonder rather than for pain. A trumpet's wailing, a wind's warm breath, the chink of a bell on an errant lamb, the s…

- Marlena De Blasi

Take my hand and grow young with me. Don't rush. Don't sleep. Be a beginner. Light the candles. Keep the fire. Dare to love someone. Tell yourself th…

- Marlena De Blasi