As always, she was carrying the washing. Rudy was carrying two buckets of cold water, or as he put it, two buckets of future ice.

A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.

Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.

If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.

Often I wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then somehow you do something like walk down the basement steps with a snowman in your hands.

I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.

I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their great skills is their capacity to escalate.

No matter how many times she was told that she was loved, there was no recognition that the proof was in the abandonment.

It was the beginning of the greatest Christmas ever. Little food. No presents. But there was a snowman in their basement.

As always, one of her books was next to her.

If you can't imagine it, think clumsy silence. Think bits and pieces of floating despair. And drowning in a train.

America's prisons have become warehouses for the mentally ill.

Success in God's eyes is faithfulness to His calling.

Dad was a bus driver, and when he finished work he would repair cars.

I am a man who likes to control things, and if I can't control them totally I will not control them at all.

I'm completely happy and fulfilled in my personal life.

I don't really consider myself a writer, but I am writing so I guess I'm a writer.

The love of a parent, that connection, it's eternal.

If somebody else is achieving more than I am, that means I can do it, too. Everybody has the ability to raise themselves up, and my life has been marked by that.

If it is too good to be true....it is probably a fraud.

It's nonsense that people join the army to serve the country, like the politicians do it only for the sake of the country.