Teaching is a calling too. And I've always thought that teachers in their way are holy - angels leading their flocks out of the darkness.

Life is a drama full of tragedy and comedy. You should learn to enjoy the comic episodes a little more.

You can't prepare for everything life's going to throw at you. And you can't avoid danger. It's there. The world is a dangerous place, and if you sit around wringing your hands about it, you'll out on all the adventure.

As I sat down, though, I realized that you can get used to certain luxuries that you start to think they're necessities, but when you have to forgo them, you come to see that you don't need them after all. There was a big difference between needing things and wanting things--though a lot of people had trouble telling the two apart--and at the ranch, I could see, we have pretty much everything we'd need but precious little else.

New Yorkers, I figured, just pretended to be unfriendly.

No child is born a delinquent. They only became that way if nobody loved them when they were kids. Unloved children grow up to be serial murderers or alcoholics.

Mom always said people worried too much about their children. Suffering when you are young is good for you, she said. It immunized your body and your soul.