I hadn't realized how much I'd been needing to meet someone I might be able to say everything to.

I made cranberry sauce, and when it was done put it into a dark blue bowl for the beautiful contrast. I was thinking, doing this, about the old ways of gratitude: Indians thanking the deer they'd slain, grace before supper, kneeling before bed. I was thinking that gratitude is too much absent in our lives now, and we need it back, even if it only takes the form of acknowledging the blue of a bowl against the red of cranberries.

There is incredible value in being of service to others. I think if many of the people in therapy offices were dragged out to put their finger in a dike, take up their place in a working line, they would be relieved of terrible burdens.

But in spite of my great desire for intimacy, I've always been a loner. Perhaps when the longing for connection is as strong as it is in me, when the desire is for something so deep and true, one knows better than to try. One sees that this is not the place for that.

We are assumed to be rather hopeless - swallowed up by incorrect notions, divorced from the original genius with which we are born, lost within days of living this distracting life.

One thing I have always been is too short. It's adorable when you're in junior high. After that, it's a pain in the ass for the rest of your life.

Ruth has friends like other people have wardrobes. I mean that there's someone for every occasion.