"Your time is your time. Be awake to it. It's hard work to be wisely alive."

"It is you who must someday break through the protective polish of who you are, to become naked and powerful to who you can truly be."

"Love your kids and just be there for them. You don't have to eyeball their every moment or to orchestrate all their comings and goings. They know this. They know that's too much. All they want is to be assured that there's a home fire cooking, that there are two foremen and a rulebook, and that there's someone to tuck them in at night."

"I travel for the great stories now ready tell, and those waiting to be told."

"Remember, it's still a mystery to be an adult. If you knew it all before eighteen, you'd have nothing to look forward to."

"Why read? Because books are precious guides to our humanity-civilization's backbone-that tenuous ridgeline that allows us to climb above the jungle and see what the horizon has to offer. Thus they represent the yearning to go beyond, to explore. Yet they are also human-sized . . ."

"Just because you're breathing, doesn't mean you're alive."

"It's a heck of a responsibility to look after a spirit. So give kids the best of who you are. That's the most you can ever do."

"No one OWES you a THING. So don't EXPECT it. You're on your OWN."

"I gather the last remnants of the evening's breeze, so cool and lazy within my arms, feeling it curl up like a small and innocent kitten."

"More than likely you'll do well enough alone by the engines of your own fate until you either hit a few really nasty bumps in the road or grow old enough to realize that there may be a diamond or two in what you thought was your old man's bucket."

"You become a man when you give your family the best of who you are."

"Marriage is not the beginning of the journey, nor the end - it is the journey."

"There are hard days to live. You awake to a day when you feel you've done it all before, and you're going to do it again, so why do it at all."

"So curious you must be. Like little calves poking their heads through the fence with big eyes and a headful of curiosity."

"It's a fool who thinks having a kid is a right, which is the biggest crock of fish heads I've ever heard."

"The Number One Rule of Working Is: DO THE BEST WORK YOU CAN. Why do anything but your best? What's the point?"

"Time. Either you are for it or against it. So be here now. Not later."

"It is everything that makes a man. It is everything that makes this man. And that is who I am alive, and that is who I am dead."

"It's a fool who thinks that having a kid is a right, which is the biggest crock of fishheads I've ever heard. You have a responsibility, not only to a person but also to a spirit because that's what a child is. A pissing, crying, yawning, giggling, laughing package of spirit that is looking for you to take the lead. It's a heck of a responsibility to look after a spirit."

"There are hard days to live. And sometimes they will be just a few, and sometimes they will seem endless. And eventually you'll come to understand that we've all been there before - or more than likely are going there now. And maybe that idea will make it easier for you, and maybe it won't. But there will still be hard days to live, and you will still have to find your way through them."

"In reality, Little Ones, there are two winters. One made for kids; the other for adults. The one made for adults is always too cold and always too long. The one made for kids is always perfect. A kid winter is an endless and wild snow carnival where all the rides are free."

"So, if the truest currency of life is time, then how do you get more time? Because if more is merrier, than having more time should make us more happier. Right? Therefore, all we have to ask ourselves is can we buy more time? . . ."

"Reading teaches us the nuances of humanity. To find the beauty of what is moral and ethical in your own actions and discover the strange subtlety of what it is to question why you should exist."

"What good is an "I LOVE YOU If said only when you have to?What good is it to ride a horse if you cannot gallop?What good is it to believe in someone if you doubt your own belief?"

"Money can buy you knowledge, but not the wisdom to use it wisely."

"Wake up. Be thankful. For whatever happens on this day, you are endlessly given the chance to start again-to be alive. And all of us should wish for that."

"Start with a brand new good-morning. To your husband or your wife. To your kids. To those you work with - and don't work with. What's the harm? How difficult is it? And it isn't, and you know it. So do it."

"Money. It fits around your neck like some permanent noose. always waiting for your next misstep."

"Sometimes the best way is to get out of your own way."

"Money - it can buy you a moment of glee but not a lifetime of happiness."

"Read what you like, not what you're told to like. That way you'll read for a lifetime."

"A good man lives for the joy in life and the happiness of being alive, not shackled to the wants of the future or the regrets of the past."

"A Good Man. Every night, like a question-and-answer prayer, my son and I recite...What are you going to be? And he says...An honest man. A fair man. A courageous man. And a good man. That's the most important thing, Papa. And my job is finally done. For the night."

"KIDS. They know a BRIBE when they see one. They want a PARENT, not a PAY-OFF. They don't care if you're Jack-King-Rodeo or Mister-You-Own-New-York. All they understand is time spent WITH YOU or WITHOUT YOU. It's that SIMPLE."

"You become a man when, in having children, you not only physically look after and protect them but also protect them with all the love and learning you have to give."

"Don't have kids until you're ready. And when you do have them, have them all the way. They aren't like some Cadillac that you can turn back into the dealership after three years."

"While all the universe and my family are still sleeping, I will walk among the red and blue twinkle-lights of the living room, to sit and gaze upon the pretty white angel atop the tree and say silent prayers, remembering what was good in the world and why I was brought here to remember."

"You haven't seen a thing until you've seen this man fight. My sword is sharp. My heart strong. My spirit ferocious - and I am going to live. Let the swords clash. Let the fight begin."

"Becoming a man means doing the right thing even though it may be hard or difficult. Boys do what is easiest. A man does what is right, whether easy or not."

"Older doesn't always mean wiser. It just means that you've had more time to do the same things over and over again- right, wrong, and different."

"I travel not only for the passion and madness and desire of movement, but because travel, like bread and water and air, becomes necessary to a life fully dreamed and lived."

"HungerYou are only here now, and then you are gone. So be hungry. Hunger toward beauty. Hunger toward love. Hunger towards the unimaginable and unthinkable."

"The things you don't know or understand are as important as your desire to know them. This is the relationship of man to mystery."

"Sometimes I feel as if I'm only a doorman awaiting the arrival of her royal majesty."

"Starting the day - Another chance to be new again.How many of us still wish for that?To be your own sunrise.To awaken like a prayer - both solemn and joyful at still being alive."

"Remember, life is too short to be spent dancing with idiots."

"Enjoy what you are learning and doing. This is one of the hardest concepts in the entire world to understand. Harder yet to put into practice."

"Don't spoil kids by trying to buy them off, to buy their time. Kids aren't stupid. They know a bribe when they see one. They want a parent not a payoff."

"How much better does being alive get then sitting beside a warm fire amidst a misty rainy morning."