The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano Quotes

“My love for Addie is terrifying, a perpetual state of vertigo, an ongoing condition of living on the edge of an abyss.”
― Donna Freitas, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano

“El padre de Jordana falleció el año pasado. Recuerdo cuándo sucedió, cómo se le notaba en los ojos después esa muerte, como un alfiler clavado en el centro de su ser. Duelo, pérdida, dolor, resistencia ante todo ello.

Me obligo a mirarla de nuevo. Ahí está, la veo. La tristeza. Un añadido permanente, incluso cuando Jordana está en frascada en otras cosas, como nuestra clase.

¿También yo la tengo en la cara?”
― Donna Freitas, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano

“How quickly the brain, the body adapts to this new presence in life; how quickly the brain, the body develops a sense for it, for her--the ebb and flow of Addie's nearness and farness, the awareness of her location, her safety, her comfort and well-being.”
― Donna Freitas, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano

“This question of motherhood, of if I will become one, and if so when, and what if I don’t become one, then what, all of them intimately laced into who I am as a woman, if I am a good or bad woman, a fulfilled or unfulfilled one, selfish or selfless, happy or not, and all of this tied up in marriage, work, divorce – it’s formed one enormously heavy boulder.”
― Donna Freitas, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano

“But it is a present, isn’t it? Something only I can give my husband, something only a woman’s body can offer.”
― Donna Freitas, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano

“Because everyone knew I hadn’t wanted a baby, now that I was having one I felt watched, tired of people wondering how I was handling the pregnancy, like it was their right to judge, to observe, to opine on my behavior.”
― Donna Freitas, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano

“First, I had to live through the pressure of everyone telling me that I needed to have a child, that I must, and was faced with convincing people that it was my right to say no to motherhood. And now I’d have to endure people’s suspicion about my turnaround regarding motherhood; about the fact that yes, now I was going to have a child.”
― Donna Freitas, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano

“Sometimes I worry that I failed myself by doing this [being pregnant].”
― Donna Freitas, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano

“We women are, by definition, just mothers-in-waiting.”
― Donna Freitas, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano

“By changing his mind about children he’s only shown me that I am not worthy enough on my own?”
― Donna Freitas, The Nine Lives of Rose Napolitano