“Laughter rises out of tragedy when you need it the most, and rewards you for your courage.”

One thing they never tell you about child raising is that for the rest of your life, at the drop of a hat, you are expected to know your child’s name and how old he or she is.

Onion rings in the car cushions do not improve with time.

How come anything you buy will go on sale next week?

Some emotions don’t make a lot of noise. It’s hard to hear pride. Caring is real faint – like a heartbeat. And pure love – why, some days it’s so quiet, you don’t even know it’s there.

Good kids are like sunsets. We take them for granted. Every evening they disappear. Most parents never imagine how hard they try to please us, and how miserable they feel when they think they have failed.

My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance.

Cleanliness is not next to godliness. It isn’t even in the same neighborhood. No one has ever gotten a religious experience out of removing burned-on cheese from the grill of the toaster oven.

When the going gets tough, the tough make cookies.

I read one psychologist’s theory that said, “Never strike a child in your anger.” When could I strike him? When he is kissing me on my birthday? When he’s recuperating from measles? Do I slap the Bible out of his hand on Sunday?

Children make your life important.

When humor goes, there goes civilization.

It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.

It is ludicrous to read the microwave direction on the boxes of food you buy, as each one will have a disclaimer: THIS WILL VARY WITH YOUR MICROWAVE. Loosely translated, this means, You’re on your own, Bernice.

Women are never what they seem to be. There is the woman you see and there is the woman who is hidden. Buy the gift for the woman who is hidden.

I got to thinking one day about all those women on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night.

He who laughs lasts.

Long before morning I knew that what I was seeking to discover was a thing I’d always known. That all courage was a form of constancy. That it is always himself that the coward abandoned first. After this all other betrayals come easily.

I’ve seen more courageous daughters than stronger men.

Real courage is when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.

It’s okay, not many have the courage to love you.

You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.

She is of the strangest beauty and the darkest courage, and when she walks with intent the earth trembles beneath her feet.

As soon as the fear approaches near, attack and destroy it.

Don’t give up, courage is my conviction.