I work at home, in the country, and days will go by when, except for my husband and son and the occasional UPS man, the only sentient creatures that see me are my chickens and turkeys.

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation.

I think of myself as something of a connoisseur of procrastination, creative and dogged in my approach to not getting things done.

Living in a rural setting exposes you to so many marvelous things - the natural world and the particular texture of small-town life, and the exhilarating experience of open space.

You have to simply love writing, and you have to remind yourself often that you love it.

Libraries are what is best about us as a society: open, exciting, rich, informative, free, inclusive, engaging.

One of the very best reasons for having children is to be reminded of the incomparable joys of a snow day.

A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder.

An ordinary life examined closely reveals itself to be exquisite and complicated and exceptional, somehow managing to be both heroic and plain.

There's a marvelous sense of mastery that comes with writing a sentence that sounds exactly as you want it to.

Even after I'd published three books and had been writing full-time for twenty years, my father continued to urge me to go to law school.

They leave to test the waters but fail to realize the waters are full of rapids.

The grace of silence-enduring hard times.

Whenever we have opportunity to serve, we must serve with all our heart.

I know you've got to earn people's trust, and you've got to earn it day after day after day.

When a man suffers from delusions he is described as mad but when a million do so they belong to a world religion

I don't have to figure out why or how or when. God has a plan, and I'm committed to it. That commitment frees me from having to worry about the details.

A habit for all of us to develop would be to look for something to appreciate in everyone we meet. We can all be generous with appreciation.

My friends think its weird that I spray perfume on my feet.

There are more than 9,000 billing codes for individual procedures and units of care. But there is not a single billing code for patient adherence or improvement, or for helping patients stay well.

Stories first heard standing at a mother's knee, are never wholly forgotten, — a little spring that never quite dries up in our journey through scorching years.