For the sake of the sons - and even for the son's future wives - a woman must keep a part of her mind and heart entirely for herself. Every family is better off with a wife and mother who can astonish and occasionally dewilder.

It's hard to visualize the toys you had fifty years ago - all save bear. He's as clear as if he were sitting on the desk in front of you...of course...he probably is.

Sisters don't need words. They have perfected a language of snarls and smiles and frowns and winks - expressions of shocked surprise and incredulity and disbelief. Sniffs and snorts and gasps and sighs - that can undermine any tale you're telling.

Human beings are drawn to cats because they are all we are not — self-contained, elegant in everything they do, relaxed, assured, glad of company, yet still possessing secret lives.

Grandad has a long and earnest conversation with his grandchild. He says, you are noisy and wiggly and will be sent back if you don't pull herself together....The baby smiles complacently. She has him exactly where she wants him.

If there is a heaven, it's certain our animals are to be there. Their lives become so interwoven with our own, it would take more than an archangel to detangle them.

A teddy bear does not depend upon mechanics to give him the semblance of life. He is loved - and therefore he lives.