“And always, there was the magic of learning things.”

Oh, magic hour, when a child first knows she can read printed words.

Francie was ten years old when she first found an outlet in writing. What she wrote was of little consequence.

Everything, decided Francie after that first lecture, was vibrant with life and there was no death in chemistry. She was puzzled as to why learned people didn’t adopt chemistry as a religion.

No. I don’t want to need anybody. I want someone to need me … I want someone to need me.

Let me be honorable and let me sin. Only let me be something every blessed minute. And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.

It’s come at last”, she thought, “the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache.

The library was a little old shaby place. Francie thought it was beautiful. The feeling she had about it was as good as the feeling she had about church. She pushed open the door and went in.

As she read, at peace with the world and happy as only a little girl could be with a fine book and a little bowl of candy, and all alone in the house, the leaf shadows shifted and the afternoon passed.

Mother, I am young. Mother, I am just eighteen. I am strong. I will work hard, Mother. But I do not want this child to grow up just to work hard.

I came to a clear conclusion, and it is a universal one: To live, to struggle, to be in love with life–in love with all life holds, joyful or sorrowful–is fulfillment. The fullness of life is open to all of us.

Let me be hungry…have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. Let me be sincere – be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar.

Is it not so that a son what is bad to his mother is bad to his wife?

It’s a beautiful religion and I wish I understood it more. No, I don’t want to understand it all. It’s beautiful because it’s always a mystery.

Oh, I wish I was young again when everything seemed so wonderful!

But the penciled sheets did not seem like nor smell like the library book so she had given it up, consoling herself with the vow that when she grew up, she would work hard, save money and buy every single book that she liked.

We’ll leave now, so that this moment will remain a perfect memory…let it be our song and think of me every time you hear it.

You’re not being complacent, not falling back and floating around the perimeter too much, figuring out when to attack. I’m trying to find that balance between attacking and spotting up and things like that.

That is what Home Depot is to me, and that is the only romantic thing about it.

You can count on time for two things. One is that it will pass. The other is that it will never shut up.

Laughing is such a pure and natural thing I try to laugh every day. Think that’s one of the most important things in life.

Realize that sleeping on a futon when you’re 30 is not the worst thing. You know what’s worse, sleeping in a king bed next to a wife you’re not really in love with but for some reason you married, and you got a couple kids, and you got a job you hate.

There are three things: to walk, to see, and to see what you see.

At a stroke, the American government closed down the fifth largest industry in the United States – alcohol production – and just handed it to criminals – a pretty remarkable thing to do.

In my house you have to talk to cats because, being ten of them, there are a lot of important things you have to say to them-like ‘Get off’ and ‘Shut up’ and things like that.