I don't think it's an accident who our parents are; I believe we choose them. So maybe I chose my parents in order to effect change.

I had this odd sibling rivalry with America.

You know, if you hang around this earth long enough you really see how things come full circle.

It takes strength to make your way through grief, to grab hold of life and let it pull you forward.

And as far as false hope, there is no such thing. There is only hope or the absence of hope - nothing else.

Life Lesson 3: You can't rush grief. It has its own timetable. All you can do is make sure there are lots of soft places around - beds, pillows, arms, laps.

Christopher Reeve understood that everything begins with hope. His vision of walking again, his belief that he would be able to in his lifetime, towered over his broken body.

Stories live in your blood and bones, follow the seasons and light candles on the darkest night-every storyteller knows she or he is also a teacher.

Alzheimer's disease locks all the doors and exits. There is no reprieve, no escape.

[On her father, Ronald Reagan:] How do you argue with someone who states that the people who are sleeping on the grates of the streets of America 'are homeless by choice'?

When I was a child, our summer days were spent swimming; chlorine in my hair was like perfume to me.

All violence is an attempt to replace shame with self-esteem.

Song of Solomon 1:2- Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.

I wanted to be his dear, his darling.

What a trajedy to be a martyr for love, yet we worship the characters anyways because they remind us of how we struggled.

I don't think I would have been a writer if I hadn't been a mother. I wanted to construct something that contained some of these feelings that I had, some of these discoveries or revelations.

Good advertising is written from one person to another. When it is aimed at millions it rarely moves anyone.

Too much is the same as not enough.

Gaiety is the soul's health; sadness is its poison.

There is nothing more satisfying than having a sentence fall into place in a way you feel is right, and then adding another one and then another one. It's extraordinarily satisfying.

It's cool to know that I can make girls faint.