Having a great dad probably permitted me to pal around with guys in a way that some women don't.

I get about five memoirs per week in my mailbox, and few of them inspire anything but a desire to pick up the channel changer.

Those are only rumors of suffering. Real suffering has a face and a smell. It lasts in the most intense form no matter what you drape over it. And it knows your name.

I find a great deal of comfort and care in my faith and prayer. I'd sooner do without air than prayer.

The words and sentences you take into your body from books are no less sacred and healing than communion. Surely at least one such person lives in your zip code.

We are in the grip of some big machine grinding us along. The force of it simplifies everything. A weird calm settled over me from inside out. What is about to happen has stood in line to happen. All the roads out of that instant have been closed, one by one.

A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.