Children are sent to school to be civilized, to learn to be part of the social enterprise.

These are the things I learned: share everything, play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw some and paint and sing and dance and play and work some every day. Take a nap every afternoon, and, when you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.

Wherever and however any one of us may be conceived, it is the same. We come into being in the arms of God.

And I’m not confused about the lack of, or the need for, imagination in low or high places. We could do better we must do better. There are far worse things to drop on people than crayolas.

Manuals have their uses ... but they are not to be confused with living.

The leaves let go, the seeds let go, and I must let go sometimes, too, and cast my lot with another of nature’s imperfect but tenacious survivors.

I once listed all the good things I did over the past year, and then turned them into resolution form and backdated them. That was a good feeling