“The GPS still has return coordinates programmed, although when I crank over the engine, I get the "reprogramming route" message. I hate the tone of these things-it manages to be mechanical yet condescending at the same time. All systems have it. Some frustrated engineer's idea of a joke, I suppose.”

“Life may not be the party we hoped for... but while we're here we may as well dance.”

“If you taught me to read and provided for me the same computer system as someone has provided for Stephen Hawking, I, too, would write great books. And yet you don't teach me to read, and you don't give me a computer stick I can push around with my nose to point at the next letter I wish typed. So whose fault is it that I am what I am?”

“Living is about capturing the essence of things. I go through my life every day with a vial, a vial wherein can be found precious essential oils of every kind! The priceless, fragrant oils that are the essence of my experiences, my thoughts. I walk inside a different realm from everybody else, in that I am existing in the essence of things; every time there is reason to smile, I hold out my glass vial and capture that drop of oil, that essence, and then I smile. And that is why I have smiled, and so you and I may be smiling at the same time but I am smiling because of that one drop of cherished, treasured oil that I have extracted. When I write, I find no need to memorize an idea, a plot, a sequence of things: no. I must only capture the essence of a feeling or a thought and once I have inhaled that aroma, I know that I have what I need.”

“It's stronger than I, she says, this idea, this need is after me all the time. The movement happens by itself, there is something in my arms that pulls me along irresistibly. If I resist I have these irritable and stifling feelings which are totally unbearable, I just have to give into this need ...”

“When I go around and speak on campuses, I still don't get young men standing up and saying, How can I combine career and family?”

“Doing something is interesting to some, if not any one is remembering that that thing has just been done. Doing something is interesting to some if not any one is remembering that any one was one beginning doing some such thing. Doing something is interesting to some when those are remembering that every one has been doing that thing in having been shown that thing. Doing something is interesting to some when they are certain that all having been doing that thing have been completely dead and have not been forgotten. Doing something is interesting to some when they are certain that very many being dead were ones completely doing that thing. Doing things are interesting to some when some one is beginning to be finishing having done that thing. Doing something is interesting to some when they are remembering that every one could be doing that thing. Doing something is interesting to some when they are certain that every one should do that thing.”