How important things had become, now that they were gone! I felt a sudden panic that I would soon forget everything.

As a writer, you should have a sticky soul; the act of continually taking things in should be as much a part of you as your hair color.

There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead.

Abstracts are real and time is a lie, it cannot be measured when one moment can expand to hold everything.

She sits down and puts her hand to her chest and rocks. Thinks of all she has lost and will lose. All she has had and will have. It seems to her that life is like gathering berries into an apron with a hole. Why do we keep on? Because the berries are beautiful, and we must eat to survive. We catch what we can. We walk past what we lose for the promise of more, just ahead.

I hoped we never had to realize all the opportunities we missed in this life.

There is incredible value in being of service to others.