“One of the things I learned about writing a memoir is you cant drag the reader through everything. Every human life is worth 20 memoirs.”

“My mother was making $135 a week, but she had resilience and imagination. She might take frozen vegetables, cook them with garlic, onion and Spam, and it would taste like a four-star dinner.”

“Years later I would hear my father say the divorce had left him dating his children. That still meant picking us up every Sunday for a matinee and, if he had the money, an early dinner somewhere.”

“One of the things I learned about writing a memoir is you can’t drag the reader through everything. Every human life is worth 20 memoirs.”

“I don't like work--no man does--but I like what is in the work--the chance to find yourself. Your own reality--for yourself not for others--what no other man can ever know. They can only see the me...”

“Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.”

“Earning happiness means doing good and working, not speculating and being lazy. Laziness may look inviting, but only work gives you true satisfaction.”

“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.”

“You see, in this country are a number of youths who do not like to work, and the college is an excellent place for them.”

“Sometimes the gap between what you are and what you want to be is a little piece of paper called your college degree. So jump.”

“I only want to write. And there's no college for that except life.”