And I don't have to listen to a sermon to know what to think or feel about them. It's almost as if I absorbed completely what mattered most to me, and the rest could go.

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.

I would be the most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookshelves.

A finished person is a boring person.

There is a little boy inside the man who is my brother... Oh, how I hated that little boy. And how I love him too.

After all those years as a woman hearing 'not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,' almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, 'I'm enough.'

Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.

There is a lot of talk now about metal detectors and gun control. Both are good things. But they are no more a solution than forks and spoons are a solution to world hunger.

Look back, to slavery, to suffrage, to integration and one thing is clear. Fashions in bigotry come and go. The right thing lasts.

You are the only person alive who has sole custody of your life ... Your entire life ... Not just the life of your mind, but the life of your heart. Not just your bank account, but your soul.

America is a country that seems forever to be toddler or teenager, at those two stages of human development characterized by conflict between autonomy and security.

Integrity is a virtue which defines the depth of life.

Even apocalypse looks less dire when viewed over a plate of bacon.

I'd love to teach a self-defense class for ladies, specifically about running away from psychos in masks chasing them with chainsaws.

I was lucky enough to watch my son hit a grand slam at sports camp, and that was great. Yes, I may miss some things, but honestly, I think I get to see more than a dad who works a daily 9 to 5.

I came to realize that we don’t raise boys to be men, we raise them not to be women.

A witty woman is a treasure; a witty beauty is a power.

Women are better than they are reputed to be: they don't mock the tears men shed unless they themselves are responsible for them.

We live in our tales of ourselves, she thought, and ignore as best we can the contradictions, and the lapses, and the abrasions of plot against our mortal souls.

Pleasures may turn a heart to stone, riches may make it callous, but sorrows cannot break it. Hearts live by being wounded.

Nancy Clutter is always in a hurry, but she always has time. And that's one definition of a lady.