It's funny how, even long after you've accepted the grief of losing someone you love and truly have gotten on with your life, every once in a while something comes up that plays "gotcha," and for a moment or two the scar tissue separates and the wound is raw again.

Funny, when you finally faced reality, it was amazing how clearly you could see things.

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.

Approach your lives as if they were novels, with their own heroes, villains, red herrings, and triumphs.

The first four months of writing the book, my mental image is scratching with my hands through granite. My other image is pushing a train up the mountain, and it's icy, and I'm in bare feet.

It's funny how, even long after you've accepted the grief of losing someone you love and truly have gotten on with your life, every once in a while something comes up that plays "gotcha," and for a moment or two the scar tissue separates and the wound is raw again.

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.