All of us have moments in our lives that test our courage. Taking children into a house with a white carpet is one of them.

Don't confuse fame with success. Madonna is one; Helen Keller is the other.

Dreams have only one owner at a time. That's why dreamers are lonely.

For years, my husband and I advocated separate vacations, but the kids kept finding us.

He opened the jar of pickles when no one else could. He was the only one in the house who wasn't afraid to go into the basement by himself. He cut himself shaving, but no one kissed it or got excited about it. It was understood that when it rained, he got the car and brought it around to the door. When anyone was sick, he went out to get the prescription filled. He took lots of pictures ... but he was never in them. (re: her father)

I am not a glutton -- I am an explorer of food.

I come from a family where gravy is considered a beverage.

I do not participate in any sport with ambulances at the bottom of a hill.

If I had my life to live over I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.

I firmly believe kids don't want your understanding. They want your trust, your compassion, your blinding love and your car keys, but you try to understand them and you're in big trouble. To me, they remain life's greatest mysteries.

I have always felt that too much time was given before birth, which is spent learning things like how to breathe in and out with your husband (I had my baby when they gave you a shot in the hip and you didn't wake up until the kid was ready to start school), and not enough time given to how to mother after the baby is born.

In two decades I've lost a total of 789 pounds. I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.

It goes without saying that you should never have more children than you have car windows.

It is ludicrous to read the microwave direction on the boxes of food you buy, as each one will have a disclaimer: "THIS WILL VARY WITH YOUR MICROWAVE." Loosely translated, this means, "You're on your own, Bernice."

It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.

Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.

Mothers are not the nameless, faceless stereotypes who appear once a year on a greeting card with their virtues set in prose, but women who have been dealt a hand for life and play each card one at a time the best way they know how. No mother is all good or all bad, all laughing or all serious, all loving or all angry. Ambivalence rushes through their veins.

People are always asking couples whose marriage has endured at least a quarter of a century for their secret for success. Actually, it is no secret at all. I am a forgiving woman. Long ago, I forgave my husband for not being Paul Newman.

People shop for a bathing suit with more care than they do a husband or wife. The rules are the same. Look for something you'll feel comfortable wearing. Allow for room to grow.

The only reason I took up jogging was so I could hear heavy breathing again.

When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.'

When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they're finished, I climb out.