Every one of us is called upon, perhaps many times, to start a new life. A frightening diagnosis, a marriage, a move, loss of a job...And onward full-tilt we go, pitched and wrecked and absurdly resolute, driven in spite of everything to make good on a new shore. To be hopeful, to embrace one possibility after another--that is surely the basic instinct...Crying out: High tide! Time to move out into the glorious debris. Time to take this life for what it is.

The last generation's worst fears became the next one's B-grade entertainment.

The things I carry closest to my heart are things I can't own.

We came from Bethlehem, Georgia bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle.

Downstream is always someone else's up.

Cooking is 80 percent confidence, a skill best acquired starting from when the apron strings wrap around you twice.

The most important thing about a person is always the thing you don't know.