“We all need a cheering committee and parents are a child's most important fans!”

“It didn't matter if i was the kind of girl who had sex, or the kind of girl who had her portrait on on a wall in the library, or the kind of girl who who got into the best college, or the kind of girl who didn't tell her parents everything, or the kind of girl who teachers loved. I just needed to be okay with all the kinds of girl I was.”

“That's one of the most reliable things about a long road trip. There's always a cat, just when you need one.”

“This is what I think, but I don't say the words because the counterpoint of yes and no, love and hate, fear and longing, the need to tear down and the need to build up are synonymous and one.”

“Romance is showing my new husband the places and things that mean the most to me.I can't help it if some of those places and things are in France.”

“I am used to going to and fro without much thought. Walking alone, I am used to never having a conversation about the whys, when's, and how's of getting from one side of a strett to the other.But walking in twosome is different. It seems to require an ungodly amount of conversation. Because, it seems, James (my new husband) has a strategy for crossing roads, and a need to teach it to me. I did not know that; I did not know that my street-crossing skills were so in need of improvement.”

“Travel Tip: The term is in situ -- in the place of origin. We travel to put ourselves in situ , in a place where we belong. The feeling that one was born in the wrong place is an ancient an universal experience, such that I suspect (a) it is part of our human DNA; and (b) is why our kind are born wanderers. We travel to find the place where we can recognize ourselves for once. Be on the lookout for that jolt of unexpected familiarity in a foreign land: that's how you'll know you are in situ .”