The only way you can write is by the light of the bridges burning behind you.

Never trust an ugly woman. She's got a grudge against the world,' said Grandma who was no oil painting herself.

I'm so far gone that I'm telling the truth. It sounds like a foreign language.

This is how you hold onto your family. You hold them with open hands so they are free to find futures of their own. It's just that simple.

September 11 We thought we'd outdistanced history Told our children it was nowhere near; Even when history struck Columbine, It didn't happen here. We took down the maps in the classroom, And when they were safely furled, We told the young what they wanted to hear, That they were immune from a menacing world. But history isn't a folded-up map, Or an unread textbook tome; Now we know history's a fireman's child Waiting at home alone.

The years went by, and Mary Alice and I grew up, Slower than we wanted to, faster than we realized.

Only the nonreader fears books.