Mail from home was so important when you were traveling. It kept you in touch with the familiar, even the part you were running from.

I should coldly, clinically think of myself and stop worrying about other people, as though I'm a necessary woman, indispensable to their happiness and well-being. Self-preservation is the first law. I must start trying to obey the law.

Eighty's a landmark and people treat you differently than they do when you're seventy-nine. At seventy-nine, if you drop something it just lies there. At eighty, people pick it up for you.

People who let the weak or greedy drink their blood sometimes have a need to play God.

Even angels must find their wings too heavy sometimes.

When you get to be my age, all your friends have either died or moved to Florida.

Timing. We give it many names: Destiny, Fate, Kismet, the will of God. Whatever we call it, lives are changed and molded by it, in small or drastic ways beyond our control. The precise, exquisite influence of timing moves people into new positions as surely as a spring flood rearranges the landscape. It is as unavoidable as life.