The standard approach has been to pump up the dosage of chemicals ... Twenty percent of these approved-for-use pesticides are listed by the EPA as carcinogenic in humans.

Quit smoking, and observe posted speed limits. This will improve your odds of getting old enough to be wise.

The way I see it, a person isn't nothing more than a scarecrow... The only difference between one that stands up good and one that blows over is what kind of a stick they're stuck up there on.

Good fiction creates empathy. A novel takes you somewhere and asks you to look through the eyes of another person, to live another life.

A mother's body remembers her babies-the folds of soft flesh, the softly furred scalp against her nose. Each child has it's own entreaties to body and soul.

At some point in my life I'd honestly hoped love would rescue me from the cold, drafty castle I lived in. But at another point, much earlier I think, I'd quietly begun to hope for nothing at all in the way of love, so as not to be disappointed. It works. It gets to be a habit.

Children can be your heartache. But that doesn't matter, you have to go on and have them . . . it works out.