Sometimes it didn't matter how much gumption you had. What mattered were the cards you'd been dealt.
I’m a grown woman now, Mom said almost every morning. Why can’t I do what I want to do?
Woman grabbed my shirt and tried to pull me over the chain. It’s all right, I told her. My dad does stuff like this all the time. He should be arrested! she shouted. Okay, kids,
You can't cling to the side your whole life, that one lesson every parent needs to teach a child is If you don't want to sink, you better figure out how to swim
What doesn't kill you will make you stronger
To all families who, despite their scars, still find a way to love.
There was no better way to read a man’s character than to watch him play poker. Some played with the aim of holding on to what they had, others played to make a killing. For some it was gambling pure...
One thing about whoring: It put a chicken on the table.
Once you go on welfare it changes you. Even if you get off welfare, you never escape the stigma that you were a charity case. You're scarred for life.
Life's too short to worry about what other people think... Anyway, they should accept us for who we are.
How many places have we lived? I asked Lori. That depends on what you mean by 'lived', she said. If you spend one in some town, did you live there? What about two nights? Or a whole week? I thought....
Helen and Buster got down and started praying with Mom, but I just stood there looking at them. The way I saw it, I was the one who'd saved us all, not Mom and not some guardian angel.
Don’t be afraid of your dark places, Mom told her. If you can shine a light on them, you’ll find treasure there.
Don't worry, God understands,' Mom said. 'He knows that your father is a cross we must bear.
But the positive thoughts would give way to negative thoughts, and the negative thoughts seemed to swoop into her mind the way a big flock of black crows takes over the landscape, sitting thick in the...
We both stood a better chance if we took on the world together.
Aficionados of the weather. We’d follow a storm
You can't live in fear of something as basic as fire.
Why spend the afternoon making a meal that will be gone in an hour, she'd ask us, when in the same amount of time, I can do a painting that will last forever?
The world seemed divided into girls with boyfriends and girls without them. It was the distinction that mattered the most, practically the only one that did matter. But I knew that boys were dangerous...