“I think the truth to living fully is to appreciate what we have, day by day, regardless of what we know might come our way.”

“I think the trick to living fully,” I said, thinking through each word, “is to appreciate what we have, day byday, regardless of what we know might come our way.” I took a breath and slowly looked from one of myparents to the other. “If I live in fear of what might be, how can I truly live my life to the full in the present? Andif I do not give myself to the day, to hope, to life, what do I miss?” I raised my eyebrows and shook my head.“Life itself, I think. At least the way I wanna live it.”

“We, and I think I'm speaking for many writers, don't know what it is that sometimes comes to make our books alive. All we can do is write dutifully and day after day, every day, giving our work the very best of what we are capable. I don't that we can consciously put the magic in; it doesn't work that way. When the magic comes, it's a gift.”

“If we could carry an awareness of being with us into each day, allowing it to influence the way we do things, and how we relate to others, we might find ourselves living a very different kind of life; maybe then we would fully embrace the deeper truth of what it means to be a human being.”

“I think that if we just listen to ourselves we know what it is we have to do . . . . And I have come o think that however much it hurts, however hard it is, we have to listen. We have to live our lives.”

“There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we believe we left without having lived them, those we spent with a favorite book.”