Look at the way you live. You've sold out. Next thing I know you'll become a Republican." She shook her head. "Where are the values I raised you with?

I wanted to let the world know that no one had a perfect life, that even the people who seemed to have it all had their secrets.

It's so much of what art and creativity are, being able to confront your own demons. If you can do that, you can get through just about everything.

Sometimes you have to get sicker before you can get better.

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.

She was developing what Mom called a bit of a sarcastic streak.

sometimes after I finished a particularly good book, I had the urge to get the library card, find out who else had read the book, and track them down to talk about it