“Starting at the bottom is not about humiliation. It's about humilitya realistic assessment of where you are in the learning curve.”

“Having kids the responsibility of rearing good, kind, ethical, responsible human beings is the biggest job anyone can embark on”

“Listen: You can't short-circuit the learning process. It takes time to get to the top, and that's good-because by the time you get there, you'll have learned what you need to know in order to stay ...”

“My mother's death brought me to my knees. She was my hero, my role model, my very best friend. I spoke to her every single day of my life. I really tried hard when I grew up to make her proud of me.”

“The gift my mother gave me was the gift of possibility. From an early age, she instilled in me a belief that I could do anything I wanted to do. It wasn't a matter of, 'Can I?' or 'Should I?' It wa...”

“No matter who you are, what you've accomplished, what your financial situation is - when you're dealing with a parent with Alzheimer's, you yourself feel helpless. The parent can't work, can't live...”

“It seems to me that since I've had children, I've grown richer and deeper. They may have slowed down my writing for a while, but when I did write, I had more of a self to speak from.”

“It didn't matter that there was a war on our doorstep. She had things to do, places to be.”

“Stranger inside me, when you are born, I will give youa closed book and ask you never to read it, never rest, never forgive a man who wants to save you.”