Hope ... is not a feeling; it is something you do.

life ain't supposed to be nothing, 'cept maybe tough

I was behaving, just like I promised, but fate intervened.

Sometimes it seemed to him that his life was delicate as a dandelion. One little puff from any direction, and it was blown to bits.

There are few things, apparently, more helpful to a writer than having once been a weird little kid.

We humans have had from time unknown the compulsion to name things and thus to be able to deal with them. The name we give to something shapes our attitude toward it. And in ancient thought the name itself has power, so that to know someone's name is to have a certain power over him. And in some societies, as you know, there was a public name and a real or secret name, which would not be revealed to others.

Everybody gets scared sometimes, May Belle. You don't have to be ashamed.