Silence has many advantages. When you do not speak, other people presume you to be deaf or feeble-minded and promptly make a show of their own limitations.

I could never work out whether we were to view religion as a life-insurance policy or a life sentence. I can understand a wrathful God who'd just as soon dangle us all from a hook. And I can understand a tender, unprejudiced Jesus. But I could never quite feature the two of them living in the same house. You wind up walking on eggshells, never knowing which... is at home at the moment.

It's tough to break yourself as news to a town that already knows you.

I look at my four boys, who are the colors of silt, loam, dust, and clay, an infinite palette for children of their own, and I understand that time erases whiteness altogether.

...whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. And peace will be with you.

For if there is any single thing that everyone hopes for most dearly, it must be this: that the youngest outlive the oldest.

When the scope of the problem seems insuperable, isn't it time to call this one, give it up, and get on with life as we know it. I do know that answer to that one: that's called child abuse. When my teenager worries that her generation won't be able to fix this problem, I have to admit to her that it won't be up to her generation. It's up to mine. This is a now-or-never kind of project.