I didn't know adults could be changed. I thought they were finished pieces, baked through and kiln dried.

You have to speak your dream out loud.

And it occurs to me that maybe the reason my mother was so exhausted all the time wasn’t because she was doing so much but because she was feeling so much.

Raising people is not some lark. It's serious work with serious repercussions. It's air-traffic control. You can't step out for a minute; you can barely pause to scratch your ankle.

Appreciation is the purest,strongest form of love. It is the outward-bound kind of love that asks for nothing and gives everything.

How seriously can I take myself? I'm just one of six billion people, right?

The mother is the most essential piece on the board, the one you must protect. Only she has the range. Only she can move in multiple directions. Once she's gone, it's a whole different game.

We're never ready for the things that happen. When the big stuff happens, we're always looking in the other direction.

He defined me first, as parents do. Those early characterizations can become the shimmering self-image we embrace or the limited, stifling perception we rail against for a lifetime.

That to fly requires chaotic, sometimes even violent passages--becomes a metaphor for all of life's most meaningful endeavors.

I am an average mother in almost every way, so yes, much to my regret, I do yell at my children.

Don't follow the crowd, let the crowd follow you.

Don't think about any poor man, just think he deserves it.

I dreamed really big when I was little.

I know a lot and have written a lot and have thought a lot about motherhood.

Do not be deceived into thinking that how a man acts is the full picture.

Actors' careers are random with a capital "R."

Unless the vessel be pure, everything which is poured into it will turn sour.

One of the great things with comedy is that there's no such thing as a mediocre comedy; it's either uproarious or crap. That's the problem.

Compassion is the greatest form of love humans have to offer.

He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.