“Step 4: Cough and gag.Step 5: Repeat Step 4 until it feels like maybe your lungs aren't inside your body anymore.Step 6: Remember that a really cute boy is beside you, so try to cough in a far more attractive manner.”

“Seven Steps to Success1) Make a commitment to grow daily.2) Value the process more than events.3) Don't wait for inspiration.4) Be willing to sacrifice pleasure for opportunity.5) Dream big.6) Plan your priorities.7) Give up to go up.”

“To make 2013 (or any other)your year, keep it simple:1) Count your blessings first2) Whatever you did last year, Do it better3) Go step by step, One day at a time.4) Create/make your own opportunities.5) Believe in your abilities at all times,6) Qutting is not an option. Keep Going.7) Finish what you started”

“See the man they are fitting into the bottom slot. He is coughing badly. No, not pneumonia. Not tuberculosis. Nothing so picturesque. Gently, gently, stretcher-bearers… he is about done. He is coughing up clots of pinky-green filth. Only his lungs, Mother and Mrs. Evans-Mawington. He is coughing well to-night. That is gas. You’ve heard of gas. Haven’t you? It burns and shrivels the lungs to… to the mess you see on the ambulance floor there. He’s about the age of Bertie, Mother. Not unlike Bertie, either, with his gentle brown eyes and fair curly hair. Bertie would look up pleading like that in between coughing up his lungs… The son you have so generously given to the War. Cough, cough, little fair-haired boy. Perhaps somewhere your mother is thinking of you… boasting of the life she has so nobly given… the life you thought was your own, but which is hers to squander as she thinks fit. ‘My boy is not a slacker, thank God.’ Cough away, little boy, cough away. What does it matter, providing your mother doesn’t have to face the shame of her son’s cowardice?”

“A typical weeknight when he was home like this:1. Sit down and try to do homework.2. Get interrupted by Jeffrey: “Please play with me!”3. Ignore brother, try to do homework.4. Get interrupted by Jeffrey: “Come ON, Steven! I’m BORED!”5. Beg Jeffrey for five minutes of peace.6. Get begged for five minutes of play: “Steven, you never, ever play with me—ever!”7. Move entire homework operations center to different room.8. Repeat steps #1-7 as directed by small drugged maniac.”

“He laughed, tried to make it into a cough, inhaled at exactly the wrong moment, and then really did cough.”