Nothing prepared me for the loss of my mother. Even knowing that she would die did not prepare me.

I think about my mother every day. But usually the thoughts are fleeting - she crosses my mind like a spring cardinal that flies past the edge of your eye: startling, luminous, lovely... gone.

One word I had throughout the first year and a half of my mother's death was 'unmoored.' I felt that I had no anchor, that I had no home in the world.

All love stories are tales of beginnings. When we talk about falling in love, we go to the beginning, to pinpoint the moment of freefall.

There is always tension in women's gymnastics between athleticism, grace, performance, and eros.

A death from a long illness is very different from a sudden death. It gives you time to say goodbye and time to adjust to the idea that the beloved will not be with you anymore.

The people we most love do become a physical part of us, ingrained in our synapses, in the pathways where memories are created.

Grief is characterized much more by waves of feeling that lessen and reoccur, it's less like stages and more like different states of feeling.

It's a blessing not to be alone in your grief but it's also painful to see your parents and siblings in pain.

One of the things about grief is that it can bring a deeper perspective into your life; in the end, it has, for me, though it's also brought sorrow.

When my mother was sick, I found myself needing to put down in my journals all sorts of things - to try to understand them, and, I think, to try to remember them.

If you love her, that's all that matters.

drenching his shirt with saltwater

Division has done more to hide Christ from the view of men than all the infidelity that has ever been spoken.

In contradiction and paradox, you can find truth.

Almond milk + cinnamon crunch = major key to success.

I was so frustrated in Sabbath after the last few albums. I just didn't like the musical direction Sabbath was going in

My experience as a young actor on network television was that I couldn't make it work. I was drowning as an actor.

Having regrets and things, it just takes your time away.

I had the same manager as Frank Sinatra, so I got to meet him and he truly impressed me. He had this magical aura - the whole atmosphere in the room changed when he walked in.

My mother told me once that we can't survive alone, but even if we could, we wouldn't want to. Without a faction we have no purpose and no reason to live.