There was always a quest for more minutes, more hours, faster progress to accomplish more in each day. The simple joy of living between summers was gone.

Now you know how badly someone wanted you, Charley. Children forget that sometimes. They think of themselves as a burden instead of a wish granted.

Sometimes, when you are not getting the love you want, giving makes you think you will.

Take one story, viewed from two different angles. It is the same day, the same moment, but one angle ends happily... and the other ends badly.

Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away.

For many of us, the curtain had just come down on childhood.

When a baby comes into the world, its hands are clenched, right? Like this?" He made a fist. "Why? Because a baby not knowing any better, wants to grab everything, to say the whole world is mine. But when an old person dies, how does he do so? With his hands open. Why? Because he has learned his lesson." "What lesson?" I asked. He stretched open his empty fingers. "We can take nothing with us.