You don't have to justify a beautiful stroke of good luck. Accept it. Smile and say thank you.

Face it: a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.

Don't pour the oil directly into my navel, pour it on my sternum and let it run down into my navel, you ignorant peasant.

Being Lutheran, Mother believed that self-pity is a deadly sin and so is nostalgia, and she had no time for either

Bad things don't happen to writers; it's all material.

Thank you, God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not love it enough.

I have taken so many wrong turns and been so careless with precious things and managed to lose, or break, or leave out in the rain so much that I loved.