There are days when I am envious of my hens: when I hunger for a purpose as perfect and sure as a single daily egg.

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.

I always thought time was the most valuable currency, but I realized the people we spent our time on and loved us back, that love held even more meaning to me.

The only way to find out how far you can trust a person is by wholeheartedly trusting him or her.

Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism.

I wrapped my Christmas presents early this year, but I used the wrong paper. See, the paper I used said 'Happy Birthday' on it. I didn't want to waste it so I just wrote 'Jesus' on it.

Actually, I have my own charity that I started that helps supplement families with terminal children.

I think I lead by example. I don't talk much. I talk when it's needed, but I just go out there and play hard every day and do it the right way.

I never really was much of a practical jokester or anything.

Caleb could be so testy for no known reason. At times, it was like dating a woman with irritable bowel syndrome. Or rabies.

I was always musical - yelling when I was a baby, singing into a brush and singing in the shower.

Two people who were once very close can without blame or grand betrayal become strangers. Perhaps this is the saddest thing in the world.