Grace arrived, like the big, loopy stitches with which a grandmotherly stranger might baste your hem temporarily.

Write as if your parents are dead.

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.

It helps to resign as the controller of your fate. All that energy we expend to keep things running right is not what's keeping things running right. We're bugs struggling in the river, brightly visible to the trout below. With that fact in mind, people like me make up all these rules to give us the illusion that we are in charge. I need to say to myself, they're not needed, hon. Just take in the buggy pleasures. Be kind to the others, grab the fleck of riverweed, notice how beautifully your bug legs scull.

Toddlers can make you feel as if you have violated some archaic law in their personal Koran and you should die, infidel.

I am going to try to pay attention to the spring. I am going to look around at all the flowers, and look up at the hectic trees. I am going to close my eyes and listen.

One line of dialogue that rings true reveals character in a way that pages of description can't.