“When I was a child, I thought grown-ups and teachers knew the truth, because they told me they did. It took years for me to discover that the first step in finding out the truth is to begin unlearning almost everything adults had taught me, and to start doing all the things they'd told me NOT to do. Their main pitch was that achievement equaled happiness, when all you had to do was study rock stars, or movie stars, or them, to see that they were mostly miserable. They were all running around in mazes like everyone else.”

“I never truckled. I never took off the hat to Fashion and held it out for pennies. I told them the truth. They liked it or they didn't like it. What had that to do with me? I told them the truth.”

“When I was younger, my brother told me that he had the power to shrink me to the size of an ant. In fact, he said, he used to have another sister, but he shrank her down and stepped on her.He also told me that when you became a grown-up, you were admitted into a private party that was full of monsters and horror movie characters. There was Chucky, drinking a cup of coffee. And the mummy on the cover of the Hardy Boys book that used to freak me out, except he was doing the twist while Jason from 'Friday the 13th' played the alto sax. He told me you stayed at the party as long as you had to, making conversation with these creatures, and that was why adults were never afraid of anything.I used to believe everything my brother told me, because he was older and I figured he knew more about the world. But as it turns out, being a grown-up doesn't mean you're fearless.It just means you fear different things.”

“I hope they remember the good stuff, when I was a baby, a toddler, when they still had hopes and dreams for their little girl, their miracle child. In truth they were good to me. They were only doing what they knew how to do; what they thought was best.”

“The truth of living is proved not by the inevitability of death but by the wonder that we lived at all. Remembering lives from the past ratifies that truth, more and more so the older we get. When I was growing up, my father told me once, "Do by look for happiness; life itself is happiness." It took me years to understand what he meant. The value of a life lived; the sheer value of living.”

“God didn't put you on this earth to do only one thing. You can do all the many things your heart desires."I just want to add that my grandfather told me that many years ago. He was a preacher, a teacher and a realtor. I had asked him why he did so many different things (I was 5 years old) and that's what he told me. I've never forgotten those words.”