During the long drag of years before our youngest child went to school, my love for my family and my need to write were in acute conflict. The problem was really that I put two things first. My husband and children came first. So did my writing. Bump.

I love my mother, not as a prisoner of atherosclerosis, but as a person; and I must love her enough to accept her as she is, now, for as long as this dwindling may take.

prayer is whenever we consciously try to get in contact with the numinous, the ineffable, the marvelous.

At Tara in this fateful hour, I place all Heaven with its power, And the sun with its brightness, And the snow with its whiteness, And the fire with all the strength it hath, And the lightning with its rapid wrath, And the winds with their swiftness along their path, And the sea with its deepness, And the rocks with their steepness, And the earth with its starkness: All these I place, By God's almighty help and grace Between myself and the powers of darkness!

I don't understand it any more than you do, but one thing I've learned is that you don't have to understand things for them to be.

You're going to get hurt yourself, and badly, if you take everything so hard.

Euripedes. Nothing is hopeless; we must hope for everything.