When you leave college, there are thousands of people out there with the same degree you have; when you get a job, there will be thousands of people doing what you want to do for a living. But you are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life.

Women who marry early are often overly enamored of the kind of man who looks great in wedding pictures and passes the maid of honor his telephone number.

Life is not so much about beginnings and endings as it is about going on and on and on. It is about muddling through the middle.

A writer is always working with whatever she's managed to store in the brainpan or puzzle out about the world.

Barack Obama presents as kind of a cool character, and I think that that's his natural personality.

Wow, so much of the way I've transacted my life... so much of the results that I'm happy about are because of what Daddy did.

Look around at the azaleas making fuchsia star bursts in spring; look at a full moon hanging silver in a black sky on a cold night. And realize that life is glorious, and that you have no business taking it for granted.