I felt held hostage by her illness and by the backward mental health system that once again was incapable of helping our family in crisis.

Some of my old memories feel trapped in amber in my brain, lucid and burning, while others are like the wing beat of a hummingbird, an intangible, ephemeral blur.

We children of schizophrenics are the great secret keepers, the ones who don't want you to think that anything is wrong.

We humans are different - our brains are built not to fix memories in stone but rather to transform them, our recollections in their retelling.

I don't want to be the person who gasps in fear whenever she hears the sound of a doorbell or a phone. I just want to lose myself in these hills, in the river winding west to the city of bridges.

We humans are different--our brains are built not to fix memories in stone but rather to transform them. Our recollections change in their retelling.

Nobel Prize-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel says we are who we are because of what we learn and what we remember. Who am I, then, if my memory is impaired?

He lowered his eyes to his dad's face. There was fear there. Fear. When your dad was frightened, there was something to be frightened about.

When you love and it hurt, love more and love without expectation.

Hope doesn't require a massive chain where heavy links of logic hold it together. A thin wire will do...just strong enough to get us through the night until the winds die down.

You know, how I deal with all my problems in a daily life, I'm tweeting shit.

Everything is about looking for happiness and God. That was a sentiment shared by my dear friend Ronald Reagan.

Beauty is transient and changes with time.

It is better to look up.

Blues is to jazz what yeast is to bread--without it, it's flat.

They couldn't wait to get me out. My dad found my place, my mom helped me pack, and my brother was making architectural plans for my bedroom. It was just what you do at 18.

Tea-shops were to become my favourite haunts in England.