“Life. It's your birthday present. Open it up and play with it. Act like you like it. (The One who gave it to you is watching, after all. Don't want to hurt his feelings.) And if you don't like your life, CHANGE IT. It is all yours.”

“It’s vitally important that you buy your own crown and declare yourself Queen, and then spend the rest of your life living into that.”

“The lesson of the Funk Dog: “You can forget what it used to feel like to feel good about life; feeling rotten—or just a low-grad funk—seems normal and therefore acceptable. I just don’t believe that God intended for any of his creatures to be petted with sticks.”

“If you are stuck sweating on a sandbar in the river of your life you've got to find a way back into those swift effervescent currents of joy that are your birthright.”

“My sister, Judy, has always said that she would like to lie in state, propped up in her coffin with her eyes blared wide open, face fixed in a big grin, and have a taped greeting for all her mourners. Something real upbeat and, well, live-sounding, like: 'He-e-e-ey!Cuteshoestellyomamahi!”

“If there exists in this universe anything more infuriating and crazy-making than a man, I don't know what it is, thank you, and I don't want to know. ”

“What if, when you woke up in the morning, ALL you had LEFT was what you had thanked God for the night before?”