“The wind comes across the plains not howling but singing. It's the difference between this wind and its big-city cousins: the full-throated wind of the plains has leeway to seek out the hidden regi...”

“When you punish a person for dreaming his dreamDon't expect him to thank or forgive you.”

“Its hard to describe, this feeling of seeing your kids spending time together like adults, meeting up again after being out there in the world like free agents. Theres something giddy and unreal ab...”

“And when the clouds do clear awayGet a momentary chance to seeThe thing I've been trying to beat to deathThe soft creature that I used to beThe better animal I used to be”

“It's in the nature of the landscape to change, and it's in the nature of people to help the process along...”

“If you work with or around children, you often hear a lot about how resilient they are. It's true; I've met children who've been through things that would drive most adults to the brink. They look ...”

“Sunset is still my favorite color, and rainbow is second.”

“The sky broke like an egg into full sunset and the water caught fire.”

“During my eleven years as a New York City public school teacher, I saw firsthand the impact that poverty has on the classroom. In low-income neighborhoods like Sunset Park, where I taught, students...”

“Moving between the legs of tables and of chairs, rising or falling, grasping at kisses and toys, advancing boldly, sudden to take alarm, retreating to the corner of arm and knee, eager to be reassu...”

“The smell of pine needles, spruce and the smell of a Christmas tree - those to me, are the scents of the holidays.”

“I know that a Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania is about the most random place for a country singer to come from, but I had an awesome childhood.”

“I shiver, thinking how easy it is to be totally wrong about people-to see one tiny part of them and confuse it for the whole, to see the cause and think it's the effect or vice versa”

“At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.”

“I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves.”