I think for everybody reading can be a solace, illumination, education.

My favorite six letter word is always because it promises so much. My favorite five letter word is never because it insists on contradicting the promise. My favorite four letter word is once because it says it happened then. My favorite three letter word is yes because I’m just now learning to say it to my heart. My favorite two letter word is if because it makes all things possible like this: If not always If not never Then once. Yes.

There is a lot of love in him, a lot of love in his heart...And he is up there with no one and nothing to love. It is a bad thing to have love and no where to put it.

In luggage claim at the Minneapolis airport, the guy came up to me and said, "Maybe you're wrong, maybe stories do matter." I wrote that on a scrap of paper and put it above my desk. That was the thing that pushed me through to the end of telling Despereaux, that comment, "Maybe they do...maybe stories matter."

But let's not speak of what might have been. Let us speak instead of what is. You are whole.

We appreciate the complicated and wonderful gifts you give us in each other. And we appreciate the task you put down before us, of loving each other the best we can, even as you love us.

As Elmore Leonard says, I write to find out what happens.