I shot you, all right," he said, "and you lost something, but you gained something as well. You just don't know it yet. I gained something, too." What?" I got to keep my promise. I didn't leave you behind.

Sacrifice is a part of life. It's supposed to be. It's not something to regret. It's something to aspire to.

the words people do not speak are louder than the ones they do.

Parents rarely let go of their children, so children let go of them. They move on. They move away. The moments that used to define them - a mother's approval, a father's nod - are covered by moments of their own accomplishments. It is not until much later, as the skin sags and the heart weakens, that children understand; their stories, and all their accomplishments, sit atop the stories of their mothers and fathers, stones upon stones, beneath the waters of their lives.

People are only mean when they're threatened, and that's what our culture does. That's what our economy does.

We don't see what we could be. We should be looking at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become.

A child embarrassed by his mother,” she said, “is just a child who hasn’t lived long enough.