“...I am realizing that intention has a lot to do with how things turn out, and accomplishments don't always have to involve such a difficult personal fight or even campaign. So,too, how you tell your story has a great deal to do with how you feel about the circumstances in your life and which direction your story is going to go in. In a peaceful, patient town, surrounded by friends, I am losing the threads of my story that have to do with disappointment, with regret, with difficulties with men. I am happy for the wonderful men I have in my life, would be happy for a new love, and am happy either way. That is a kind of magical thinking that works”

“I am realizing that intention has a lot to do with how things turn out, and accomplishments don't always have to involve such a difficult personal fight or campaign. So, too, how you tell your story has a great deal to do with how you feel about the circumstances in your life and which direction your story is going to go in.”

“So, too, how to tell your story has a great deal to do with how you feel about the circumstances in your life and which direction your story is going to go in”

“I would not know how I am supposed to feel about many stories if not for the fact that the TV news personalities make sad faces for sad stories and happy faces for happy stories. ”

“How am I going to tell the kids? How do I tell the man that I love, the man that I swore I’d grow old with that we won’t have that happy ending that he and I have worked so hard for? How do I say goodbye to all of you? How do I let go?”

“How do you get the happy ending? John Irving ought to know. One of my favorite authors, Irving writes these multigenerational epics of fiction that somehow work out in the end. How does he do it? He says, 'I always begin with the last sentence ; then I work my way backwards, through the plot, to where the story should begin.' That sounds like a lot of work, especially compared to the fantasy that great writers sit down and just go where the story takes them. Irving lets us know that good stories and happy endings are more intentional than that. Most 20 something's can't write the last sentence of their lives. But when pressed, they usually can identify things they want in their 30s or 40s or 60s -or things they don't want- and work backward from there. This is how you have your own multigenerational epic with a happy ending. This is how you live your life in real time.”