“Chapter books were my salvation, in the same way as Jesus was for other kids. Our family was always broke, but my parents always shelled out our version of a monthly bar bill for Scholastic paperbacks. Thank you, Astrid Lindgren; when you gave us Pippi Longstocking, you gave me life. I read the book like I read the first issue of Ms. magazine ten years later. The experience was like Helen Keller breaking the code for the word ‘water.’ I wanted to race around spreading the good news. I could breathe again, forever. There was going to be a spot for me in this joint, the earth, after all. It was never going to be a great match for someone as bright and strange as me, but books were going to make it survivable.”

Anne Lamott

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“I had a brother who was my savior, made my childhood bearable. He was older by five years, Jack Sendak. He wrote a number of books. He was very, very, very gifted. More importantly to my life, he saved my life. He drew me away from the lack of comprehension that existed between me and my parents, and he took his time with me to draw pictures and read stories and live a kind of fantastical life.”

Maurice Sendak

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“Bands, especially when they’re good ones, can be like families, but unlike biological families—at least unlike my biological family—people in my band listen to each other.”

Marc Ribot

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“Into the little port you cannot sail unwelcome at any hour of day or night.”

Emily Dickinson

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“Family is like water—it has a memory of what it once filled, always trying to get back to the original stream.”

Colum McCann

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“Events are not what make up family life. Family life exists in the nonevents: the meals, the arguments, the reading together, the backyard soccer, the getting ready for school. We hid alone together on our mountain and reveled in the nonevents.”

Claire Dederer

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“Does Palin really think the average housewife in Ohio who can’t pay her bills is going to load up on ammo, board two different planes, camp out for two nights with a film crew and shoot a caribou so she can feed her family organic food?”

Maureen Dowd

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“I am from a family of artists. Here I am, making a living in the arts. It has not been a rebellion. It’s as though I had taken over the family Esso station.”

Kurt Vonnegut

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“My relatives say that they are glad I’m rich, but that they simply cannot read me.”

Kurt Vonnegut

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“If you want your kids to have strong self-esteem and confidence that they can solve hard problems, those qualities won’t magically materialize in high school. You have to design them into your family’s culture—and you have to think about this very early on. Like employees, children build self-esteem by doing things that are hard and learning what works.”

Clayton M. Christensen

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“It’s not enough to make time for your children. There are certain stages in their lives when you have to give them the time when they want it. You can’t run your family like a company. It doesn’t work.”

Andrew Grove

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“As a kid I was the youngest member of my family, and the youngest child in any family is always a jokemaker, because a joke is the only way he can enter into an adult conversation.”

Kurt Vonnegut

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