The fundamental condition of childhood is powerlessness.

The fact is that the same sequence of days can arrange themselves into a number of different stories.

Hungry ears are sharp ones.

I had spent years thinking about one thing while I was doing another. I had, in fact, prided myself on being able to do two things at once.

Trollope wrote so many novels and other works that they tend to crowd each other out.

I say, when your hair turns gray and your children think they know who you are, do the thing that shakes up who you think you are, even who you had prided yourself on being. When all those around you say they simply don't recognize you any longer, that's the real compliment.

The one thing ... maybe no family could tolerate was things coming out into the open.