“He was a generous but subtly demanding boss.”

“Time after time during the next six months, he would put me together again.”

“A live-in domestic worker: "You are never sure that your soul is your own except when you are out of the house.”

“A young mark twain on the make: "I can't turn in inkstand into Aladdin's lamp.”

“Abilene possessed greater vision, perhaps because it possessed little else.”

“One of George H. W. Bush's early teachers at Andover wrote, "At the moment he is intellectually immature for his powers of reasoning are not entirely developed.”

“once sailed neither the ship nor the shore ever remains the same again.”

“We are not trapped or locked up in these bones. No, no. We are free to change. And love changes us. And if we can love one another, we can break open the sky.”

“One day spent with someone you love can change everything.”

“Stories are "how we organize the chaos of experience into the order we require just a carry-on." Joan Gideon”

“Time after time during the next six months, he would put me together again.”

“There are mornings when, from the first ray of light seized upon by the eye, and the first simple sounds that get inside the head, the heart is convinced that it is existing in rhythm to a kind of ...”

“Everyone talks about how, in your 30s, all of these growing pains transition into wisdom and you feel more self-assured and confident, but I think I had a bit of a jump-start on that at 27.”

“I think it was hard at first for my dad to transition to being immobile.”