A. From Maya Angelou’s book, Letter to My Daughter, 2009

‘We may act sophisticated and worldly but I believe we feel safest when we go inside ourselves and find home, a place where we belong and maybe the only place we really do’

‘I believe that one can never leave home. I believe that one carries the shadows, the dreams, the fears and the dragons of home under one’s skin, at the extreme corners of one’s eyes and possibly in the gristle of the earlobe’

B. I had something, by Lucy Kaplansky

I had something, it fell from me
Something strong
Like a pounding drum, like ringing bells
When I was young
I had something and it was gone

I had something made me walk all night
Made me run from home, made me fight
I had something
Made me feel alone
Like an orphan waiting for a home

Every footstep that I take
Completes the circle my life makes
Every living thing has ties that bind                                                                                                                What I lost returns with love and time……

C. I have not read Ruta Sepetys’, book Salt to the Sea, but I came across this sentence from the book ‘Mother was comfort. Mother was home. A girl who lost her mother was suddenly a tiny boat on an angry ocean’