- Diane: For various reasons I did not keep a journal while I was in the convent, so I have to piece this one together from memory. The result is probably more balanced and forgiving than I knew how to be at the time, so I have decided to dedicate it to Saint Anselm, all of the philosophers, and a few other beginning with "A." I doubt if Sister Patti would have had much time for me leaving the convent. She used to say, "You can peel the skin off of an onion but what difference did it make? Inside of each layer was a smaller, shinier onion." So, here I am today, a smaller shinier onion, but still an onion. If this book shows anything it shows, at last, how I finally found out how to live the life I dreamed for myself as a little girl. Learned to accept that trying to become yourself needn't be selfish, and that the props in this play might just as easily be a pen and paper, as the habit and veil. And yet, when the time came to finally say goodbye, I have few words to describe the grief. Perhaps you just had to be there and feel the layers coming off.
- Diane: That's the way it was with these women. When you called into question everything they stood for, when you spat, complained and argued, they returned love. I was surrounded by strong, luminous women intent on doing good.