I really just wanted to be a writer, but people tell you, 'You should have a backup career,' so I thought, 'OK, I'll act.' That was the foolishness of my vision for my life - that my backup career would be completely undependable.

People love the way they're capable of loving-but that's not always how you want them to love or how you think they should love.

I did what most writers do when something happens that's overwhelming, fascinating, moving, all of that. I didn't know what else to do about it except write about it.

There is a point in the grieving process when you can run away from memories or walk straight toward them.

That is your legacy on this Earth when you leave this Earth: how many hearts you touched.

America had taken my father from me. And over most of the years of his illness, I gradually started feeling this support system from this country who-people grieving along with us.

Even if the Bush Administration had flung open the gates to stem-cell research years ago, we would not be at the point of offering treatment today. Christopher Reeve would still have been taken from us. But we would be closer.