You want to protect your child from pain, and what you get instead is life, and grace; and though theologians insist that grace is freely given, the truth is that sometimes you pay for it through the nose. And you can't pay your child's way.

Now she and I sit together in her room and eat chocolate, and I tell her that in a very long time when we both to go heaven, we should try to get chairs next to each other, close to the dessert table.

I wish I had thrown out the bathroom scale at age 16. Weighing yourself every morning is like waking up and asking Dick Cheney to validate your sense of inner worth.

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

Needless to say, there was no one around remotely fitting the description of a normal person: I was at a writing conference.

I get thirsty people glasses of water, even if that thirsty person is just me.

If you are hoping to find your self-worth and fulfillment in other peoples' opinion of your writing, you will never find it.