Youngsters of the age of two and three are endowed with extraordinary strength. They can lift a dog twice their own weight and dump him into the bathtub.

Early in my life I had made a pact with myself. I would never eat anything that moved when I cooked it, excited the dog, or inflated upon impact with my teeth.

If Life is a Bowl of Cherries, What Am I Doing in the Pits?

We even switched to a newly-formed church across the town that gave one hundred and twenty trading stamps each time we attended. (We now worship a brown and white chicken with a sunburst on its chest.)

I am always behind the shopper at the grocery store who has stitched her coupons in the lining of her coat and wants to talk about a 'strong' chicken she bought two weeks ago. The register tape also runs out just before her sub-total. In the public restroom, I always stand behind the teen-ager who is changing into her band uniform for a parade and doesn't emerge until she has combed the tassels on her boots, shaved her legs, and recovered her contact lens from the commode.

No baby shall at any time be quartered in a house where there are no soft laps, no laughter, or no love.

There is nothing sadder in this world than to awake Christmas morning and not be a child. ... Time, self-pity, apathy, bitterness, and exhaustion can take the Christmas out of the child, but you cannot take the child out of Christmas.