I hear the first drops. Like the tapping of a stranger at the door of a dream, the rain changes everything.

As long as you live, it is never too late to make amends. Take my advice, child. Don't waste your precious life with regrets and sorrow. Find a way to make right what was wrong, and then move on.

My father and I, we can't soothe each other. I'm too young, he's too old, and we don't know how to talk anymore if we ever did

When Ma died, I didn't know how to go on, either. I don't know how. I don't feel the same know, not exactly. Now that I see that one day comes after another and you get through them one measure at a time. But I'd like to go, not like Fonda Nye, I don't want to die, I just want to go, away, out of the dust.

the way i see it, hard times aren't only about money, or drought, or dust. hard times are about losing spirit, and hope, and what happens when dreams dry up.

Sometimes, a flame can be utterly extinguished. Sometimes, a flame can shrink and waver, but sometimes a flame refuses to go out. It flares up from the faintest ember to illuminate the darkness, to burn in spite of overwhelming odds.

And I know now that all the time I was trying to get out of the dust, the fact is, what I am, I am because of the dust. And what I am is good enough. Even for me.