Childhood was terrifying for me. A kid has no control. You’re three feet tall, flat broke, unemployed, and illiterate. Terror snaps you awake. You pay keen attention. People can just pick you up and move you and put you down.

I'm doomed to act like myself, even when it's inconvenient!

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

The shreiking fight or the out-of-character insult endures forever, while the daily sweetness dissolves like sugar in water.

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.

How much smaller the large places are once we're grown up, when we have car keys and credit cards.

But I'm not ready to stop listening to the screwed-up inner voice that's been ordering me around for a lifetime. My head thinks it can kill me... and go on living without me.