Last time I talked to her she didn't sound like herself. She's depressed. It's awful what happens when people run out of money. They start thinking they're no good.

If I had to give up my life for anything, it would have to have the resilience of hope, the elation of new literacy, the brilliant life of a field of flowers, the elementary kindness of bread. Nothing short of that. It would have to be something as sure as love.

He had senile dementia and liked to go outside naked, but he could still do two things perfectly: win at checkers and write out prescriptions.

Why is it that only girls stand on the sides of their feet? As if they're afraid to plant themselves?

Many of us who aren't farmers or gardeners still have some element of farm nostalgia in our family past, real or imagined: a secret longing for some connection to a life where a rooster crows in the yard.

When moral superiority combines with billowing ignorance, they fill up a hot-air balloon that's awfully hard not to poke.

I've never gotten over high school, to the extent that I'm still a little surprised that my friends want to hang out with me.