If you have never driven an auto rikshaw through a rip in the fabric of space-time created by two giant, hippopotamus-sized birds, I strongly recommend wearing a bike helmet when you do so. And if your rikshaw doesn’t have a seat belt, you should probably consider duct-taping yourself to the seat. Because I have never been on such a bumpy, upside-down, mentally and emotionally disturbing ride in my life. And I’ve been on some doozies.

I wasn’t the kind of person anymore who waited for bad situations to get better, hoping someone else would take charge. I was the kind of person who stepped up, fixed things, and made them right.

Suck your blood? A rakkhosh will suck the very marrow from your bones and then use your finger as a toothpick!

The day my parents got swallowed by a rakkhosh and whisked away to another galactic dimension was a pretty craptastic day. The fact that it was actually my twelfth birthday makes it all that much worse. Instead of cake or presents or a party, I spent the day kicking demon butt, traveling through time and space looking for my family, and basically saving New Jersey, our entire world, and everything beyond it.

Fate clearly has a twisted sense of humor.

As weird as they were, they were my weirdos, and nothing in the universe could ever be right without them.

We humans may not be powerful or magical, but the stories we pass on to our children can be.

My royal daughter,” Ma had singsonged, “none of us is just one thing. Life is a process of learning to recognize our many faces.

The best support Western feminists could give their global sisters (she said), was to listen first and speak later, following the lead of and partnering with local feminists, giving economic and other support from a position of ‘solidarity’ rather than ‘saving

We humans may not be powerful or magical," Baba added, holding me close. "But the stories we pass on to our children can be.