My life is a pitiful, mechanical thing without a past, like a little wind-up car, ready to run in any direction someone points me.

Hope is a renewable option: If you run out of it at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning.

If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life.

Few people know so clearly what they want. Most people can't even think what to hope for when they throw a penny in a fountain.

Finally, cooking is good citizenship. It's the only way to get serious about putting locally raised foods into your diet, which keeps farmlands healthy and grocery money in the neighborhood.

We came from Bethlehem, Georgia bearing Betty Crocker cake mixes into the jungle.

Maybe life doesn't get any better than this, or any worse, and what we get is just what we're willing to find: small wonders, where they grow.

Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say.

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof.

It's what you do that makes your soul.

Pain reaches the heart with electrical speed, but truth moves to the heart as slowly as a glacier.

Names turned over by time, like the plough turning the soil. Bringing up the new while the old were buried in the mud.

When do you become a man? Becoming a man means doing the right thing even though it may be hard or difficult. Boys do what is easiest. A man does what is right, whether easy or not.

There is no glory in star or blossom till looked upon by a loving eye There is no fragrance in April breezes till breathed with joy as they wander by.

My favorite time to dance is at, like, wedding receptions, when it's all ages and everyone seems to be having fun.

Growth and fulfillment come from abandoning old practices and embracing new ones.

You do something wrong, you learn from it, you move on.

Like anyone cared where I was, or who I was.

Men of reason have endured;men of passion have lived.

Anthony Heilbut has been a guide and a mentor to me. I know of no one who has the love and depth of knowledge of this extraordinary author.

As long as I leave my frustration behind, I know I am moving toward my goal again.