I never had any question that my parents loved me. I had a real sense of self confidence.

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.

The way Mom saw it, women should let menfolk do the work because it made them feel more manly. That notion only made sense if you had a strong man willing to step up and get things done, and between Dad's gimp, Buster's elaborate excuses, and Apache's tendency to disappear, it was often up to me to keep the place from falling apart. But even when everyone was pitching in, we never got out from under all the work. I loved that ranch, though sometimes it did seem that instead of us owning the place, the place owned us.

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

You'll never make a fortune working for the boss man.

You West Virginia girls are one tough breed," he said. You got that right," I told him.

Anyone who thinks he's too small to make a difference has never been bit by a mosquito