The belief that life was hard and often its worst battles were fought in private, that it was possible to walk through fear and come out scorched but still breathing.

I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures.

Like a starfish, the heart endures its amputation.

Old dogs can be a regal sight. Their exuberance settles over the years into a seasoned nobility, their routines become as locked into yours as the quietest and kindest of marriages.

Maybe this is the point: to embrace the core sadness of life without toppling headlong into it, or assuming it will define your days.

What they never tell you about grief is that missing someone is the simple part.

memory is both the curse of grief and the eventual talisman against it; what at first seems unbearable becomes the succor that can outlast pain.

Hope in the beginning feels like such a violation of the loss, and yet without it we couldn't survive.

The real hell of this," he told her, "is that you're going to get through it.

the territory of grief ... is both cruel and commonplace.

That she was irreplaceable became a bittersweet loyalty: Her death was what I had now instead of her.

As we trust in God, we shall triumph in any trouble.

We change our behavior when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing. Consequences give us the pain that motivates us to change.

Victory at all costs victory in spite of all terror victory however long and hard the road may be for without victory there is no survival.

Whenever I have knocked, a door has opened. Wherever I have wandered, a path has appeared. I have been helped, supported, encouraged and nurtured by people of all races, creeds, colors and dreams.

I've lectured at Stanford, Princeton & Harvard to name a few... I just might be smarter than YOU

The Colonel's hand was so little, and I grabbed it tight, his cold seeping into me and my warmth into him. 'I memorized the populations,' he said.

People in my hometown seldom called me piao liang, [beautiful] because my smaller eyes were a far cry from the wide irises of the most beloved television actresses.

Lou Gerstner knows how to do a deal, and George Bush Sr., less so.

All powerful is the rule of fashion.

Animals are very easy to love and be friends with.