“Stock your mind. It is your house of treasure and no one in the world can interfere with it.”

“Sit and quiet yourself. Luxuriate in a certain memory and the details will come. Let the images flow. You'll be amazed at what will come out on paper. I'm still learning what it is about the past t...”

“After a full belly all is poetry.”

“Kids all want to look cool, as if knowledge is a great burden, but they're always looking around. They remember.”

“We never really had any kind of a Christmas. This is one part where my memory fails me completely.”

“When I was a teacher, I'd walk into the classroom. I stood at the board. I was the man. I directed operations. I was an intellectual and artistic and moral traffic cop, and I - and I would direct t...”

“A word mother, means a world to me.”

“Maa" The only word that holds power to give you strength when you are in pain.”

“STAINSWith red clay between my toes,and the sun setting over my head,the ghost of my mother blows in,riding on a honeysuckle breeze, oh lord,riding on a honeysuckle breeze.Her teeth, the keys of a ...”

“For me, the two weeks between Christmas and Twelfth Night have come to be reserved for desultory reading. The pressure of the holiday is over, the weather outside is frightful, there are lots of le...”

“Frank Capra's grandson was a second Assistant Director on 'Christmas Vacation.'”

“I'd like to dial it back 5% or 10% and try to have a vacation that's not just e-mail with a view.”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but it sure makes the rest of you lonely.”

“For Beatrice, when we first met, I was lonely, and you were pretty.Now I am pretty lonely.”

“I missed him so much that it felt like a physical pain in the area below my ribs. I opened my mouth to accommodate it. I put my hand to it. A hollow, aching, piercing place.”