Love was like that, like a dream you didn't quite understand, one in which you didn't necessarily know what you were looking at until it was right in front of you.

My darling girl, when are you going to realize that being normal is not necessarily a virtue? It rather denotes a lack of courage." - Aunt Frances

Others said May was best, that sweet green time when lilacs bloomed and gardens along Main Street were filled with sugary pink peonies and Dutch tulips.

It was a great escape for me and it was a way to take a break from what was going on in my own world, to go into another world.

Be careful what you wish for. I know that for a fact. Wishes are brutal, unforgiving things. They burn your tongue the moment they're spoken and you can never take them back.

I wonder how a lioness will manage in a dovecote. Can you put away your teeth and claws?

The weak are cruel. The strong have no need to be.

Once you know some things, you can't unknow them. It's a burden that can never be given away.

This was what it meant to be human, to know that time moved and all things changed.

No one knows you like a person with whom you've shared a childhood. No one will ever understand you in quite the same way.

The evening had turned sweet and blue.

... there is a whole hell of a lot of knowledge about the (expletive removed) human condition that we are not ready for.

Turn obstacles into opportunities and problems into possibilities.

Having children is a lottery and you never know what you are going to draw out. Perhaps it is as well I got none.

At a certain point, unabashed optimism becomes delusional insanity.

If you're not in Germany, you're not in Europe. And if you're not in Asia, you're nowhere.

I was a dork. I'm still kind of goofy and clumsy and not always the most graceful person.

We have to start seeing people as human beings. Our entire humanity depends on that.

Every threat to the family is a threat to society itself. So protect your families! See in them your country’s greatest treasure and nourish them always by prayer and the grace of the sacraments.

It is not primarily ideas that have a history; it is societies. And then what often seem opposed ideas can in the end be seen as parts of a single social process.

I learned: the first lesson of my life: nobody can face the world with his eyes open all the time.