I hate Erma," I told Mom... "You have to show compassion for her..." She added that you should never hate anyone, even your worst enemies. "Everyone has something good about them," she said. "You have to find the redeeming quality and love the person for that." "Oh yeah?" I said. "How about Hitler? What was his redeeming quality?" "Hitler loved dogs," Mom said without hesitation.

People are like animals. Some are happiest penned in, some need to roam free. You go to recognize what's in her nature and accept it.

God deals us all different hands. How we play 'em is up to us.

It was good work, the kind of work that let you sleep soundly at night and, when you awoke, look forward to the day.

We laughed about all the kids who believed in the Santa Clause myth and got nothing but a bunch of cheap plastic toys. 'Years from now, when all the junk they got is broken and long forgotten,' Dad said, ' you'll still have your stars.

What I do know is that wondering why you survived don't help you survive.

I became known as Lily Casey, the mustang-breaking, poker-playing, horse-race-winning schoolmarm of Coconino County, and it wasn't half bad to be in place where no one had a problem with a woman having a moniker like that.