Instead of plotting the demise of the traditional family, as some politicians and religious leaders would have you believe, gay people mow their lawns and watch 'American Idol' and video their children's concerts and have the same hopes and dreams that their straight counterparts do.

She had never been a pretty crier. She sobbed the way she did everything else - with passion and excess.

I wonder if other mothers feel a tug at their insides, watching their children grow up into the people they themselves wanted so badly to be.

We'd sit with a big bowl of popcorn, wrapped together in a queen-size blanket, and would escape to a place where magic was ours for the taking, where men rescued the people they loved instead of abandoning them. A place where, no matter how bad things looked at that moment, there would always be a happy ending.

Once you call something a story, it's set in stone. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end that can't be transformed, because by definition, if you do that, it's not the same story anymore

The best way to prevent a heartache was to cushion the coming blow.

Love meant jumping off a cliff and trusting that a certain person would be there to catch you at the bottom.