“If something doesn't work exactly right, or maybe needs some special treatment, you don't just throw it away. Everything can't be fully operational all the time. Sometimes, we need to have the pati...”

“You should never be surprised when someone treats you with respect, you should expect it.”

“As Isabel acted out her date, both of them laughing, I stayed in the kitchen, out of sight, and pretended she was telling me, too. And that, for once, I was part of this hidden language of laughter...”

“If you try anything, if you try to lose weight, or to improve yourself, or to love, or to make the world a better place, you have already achieved something wonderful, before you even begin. Forget...”

“I knew from experience that no matter how much you turn things in your head, trying to make sense of them, some people just defy all logic.”

“for once, you believed in yourself. you believed you were beautiful and so did the rest of the world.”

“Self-confidence and self-will are strength for sacred accomplishments.”

“The Lord is my strength.”

“I even made poor Louis take me on Crusade. How's that for blasphemy? I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn.....”

“What work a person does to earn a viable income shapes their thinking patterns, buttresses their sense of self-worth, and affects how they adapt to predictable and unpredictable obstacles.”

“You will act like the sort of person you conceive yourself to be.”

“Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are.”