The memories stayed with him for so long, and stayed vivid. And it didn't matter to me that he'd already repeated that before. I could hear it forever.

I had this odd sibling rivalry with America.

You know, if you hang around this earth long enough you really see how things come full circle.

It takes strength to make your way through grief, to grab hold of life and let it pull you forward.

And as far as false hope, there is no such thing. There is only hope or the absence of hope - nothing else.

Life Lesson 3: You can't rush grief. It has its own timetable. All you can do is make sure there are lots of soft places around - beds, pillows, arms, laps.

Christopher Reeve understood that everything begins with hope. His vision of walking again, his belief that he would be able to in his lifetime, towered over his broken body.

Stories live in your blood and bones, follow the seasons and light candles on the darkest night-every storyteller knows she or he is also a teacher.

Alzheimer's disease locks all the doors and exits. There is no reprieve, no escape.

[On her father, Ronald Reagan:] How do you argue with someone who states that the people who are sleeping on the grates of the streets of America 'are homeless by choice'?

When I was a child, our summer days were spent swimming; chlorine in my hair was like perfume to me.

Living for your purposes warrants eternal blessings

Colour is a power which directly influences the soul.

It is then he realises that certain things loom larger than forgiveness and reconciliation: memory, for one, and history, bloody history.

Be determined enough to live for your dreams.

Can you see God? You haven't seen him? I've never seen the wind. I see the effects of the wind, but I've never seen the wind. There's a mystery to it.

Why do you do these things to yourself? Not just what you did to the window, but the way you talked to Clary. What are you punishing yourself for? You can't help how you feel.

The man grinned back at me with that perfect sincerity we fear and call simple-minded.

As for the virtuous poor, one can pity them of course, but one cannot possibly admire them.

Computers are no more able to create information than iPods are capable of creating music.

Hard as it may appear in individual instances , dependent poverty ought to be held disgraceful.