You have to get hurt. That's how you learn. The strongest people out there, the ones who laugh the hardest with a genuine smile, those are the people who have fought the toughest battles. Because they've decided that they're not going to let anything hold them down, they're showing the world who's boss. One must always be prepared for riotous and endless waves of transformation.

Parla come magni,' It means, 'Speak the way you eat,' or in my personal translation: 'Say it like you eat it.' It's a reminder - when you're making a big deal out of explaining something, when you're searching for the right words - to keep your language as simple and direct as Roman rood. Don't make a big production out of it. Just lay it on the table.

I see a lot of women who can't travel when they're young, and then their kids grow up and they become amazing adventurers. Travel is not only for the young. Sometimes it's wasted on the young.

God never slams a door in your face without opening a box of Girl Scout cookies.

I said, "It seems like you have fond feelings toward your ex-wife. Are you two still close?" "Nah," he said casually. "She thinks I changed my name to Motherfucker."

When Catherine told me about this (tragedy nearby), I could only say, shocked, "Dear God, that family needs grace." She replied firmly, "That family needs casseroles," and then proceeded to organize the entire neighborhood into bringing that family dinner, in shifts, every single night, for an entire year. I do not know if my sister fully recognizes that this _is_ grace.

They flank me - depression on my left, loneliness on my right. They don't need to show their badges. I know these guys very well. ... Then they frisk me. They empty my pockets of any joy I had been carrying there. Depression even confiscates my identity; but he always does that.