Happines is like mercury. Hard to hold, and when we drop it, it shatters into a million pieces. Maybe the bravest of all are those who have the courage to reach for it again.

As a writer, you paint strokes and leave suggestions so readers can create their own pictures. That allows you to know someone by a small action and it saves countless pages of explanation.

When a scientist's son or daughter becomes a scientist they'll say "Wonderful! Wonderful!" So, why, in the name of God, would a mother be jealous to see her daughter become a successful writer?

live your life as if you may lose everything.

I am a natural optimist but there were times when (it seemed like) I was doing nothing but adding up on the back of envelope what I had to pay this month.

The truth is I hate cocktail parties when the only person I know is my supposed date, and he abandons me the minute we come in the door.

I certainly understand very much what it's (like when) an expense comes up and you're trying to figure out how to pay for it.