Smell is a potent wizard that transports you across thousands of miles and all the years you have lived. The odors of fruits waft me to my southern home, to my childhood frolics in the peach orchard. Other odors, instantaneous and fleeting, cause my heart to dilate joyously or contract with remembered grief. Even as I think of smells, my nose is full of scents that start awake sweet memories of summers gone and ripening fields far away.

My optimism is grounded in two worlds, myself and what is about me. I demand that the world be good, and lo, it obeys. I proclaim the world good, and facts range themselves to prove my proclamation overwhelmingly true.

Each day comes to me with both hands full of possibilities.

I believe in the immortality of the soul because I have within me immortal longings.

I could never stay long enough on the shore; the tang of the untainted, fresh, and free sea air was like a cool, quieting thought.

Our beloved ones have not 'gone to a far country.' It is only the veil of sense that separates them from us, and even that veil grows thin when our thoughts reach out to them.

When we do the best we can, we never know what miracles await.