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?

Most important thing in life is learning how to fall.

But I also hoped that [she] had chosen California because she thought that was her true home, the place where she really belonged, where it was always warm and you could dance in the rain, pick grapes right off the vines, and sleep outside at night under the stars.

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

Don't you make fun of me or my children! Some babies are premature. Mine were all postmature. That's why they're so smart. Their brains had longer to develop.

Whoever coined the phrase 'a man's got to play the hand that was dealt him' was most certainly one piss-poor bluffer.

She never felt sorry for herself, and that was something I decided I admired most in people.