I have many memories of my boyhood. Anticipating Sunday dinner was one of them. Just as we children … sat anxiously at the table, with the aroma of roast beef filling the room, Mother would say to me, ‘Tommy, before we eat, take this plate I’ve prepared down the street to Old Bob and hurry back.’ “I could never understand why we couldn’t first eat and later deliver his plate of food. I never questioned aloud but would run down to his house and then wait anxiously as Bob’s aged feet brought him eventually to the door. Then I would hand him the plate of food. He would present to me the clean plate from the previous Sunday and offer me a dime as pay for my services. My answer was always the same: ‘I can’t accept the money. My mother would tan my hide.’ He would then run his wrinkled hand through my blond hair and say, ‘My boy, you have a wonderful mother. Tell her thank you.’ … Sunday dinner always seemed to taste a bit better after I had returned from my errand.

The difference between friendship and love is how much you can hurt each other.

Someday you're prince charming will come. Mine just took a wrong turn, got lost, and is too stubborn to ask for directions.

Infatuation is when you think that he's as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize he's as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Conner, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford-but you'll take him anyway.

Many a flower is born to blush unseen, and waste its fragrance on the desert air.

Love is like a painting. You have a mirage of colors, but only certain ones will build the whole picture. You can create a number of pieces, but only one will ever strike you as a masterpiece. Sometimes, our masterpieces are lost. And while many of our other paintings are beautiful and serene, perfect and splendid, we can't simply forget our masterpiece.

 One of my favorite stories concerns a woman named Sarah Edwards, wife of the famous Puritan preacher Jonathan Edwards. He was best known perhaps for his sermon that every early American schoolchild had read: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” He told his audience:

The wrath of God is like great waters that are dammed for the present. . . .

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you.

And, for the unregenerate, he continued:

When God beholds the ineffable extremity of your case, and sees your torment to be so vastly disproportioned to your strength, and sees how your poor soul is crushed, and sinks down, as it were, into an infinite gloom; he will have no compassion upon you . . . ; there shall be no moderation or mercy.15

I cannot help but wonder how such excesses struck the hearts and minds of tender people everywhere and of Edwards’ own devout and loving wife in particular. It so happened that on one occasion when Edwards was out of town, another local preacher came to visit Sarah and her children. He offered to have a prayer with the family, and she agreed. Afterward, she recorded in her journal that while the Reverend Peter Reynolds was offering his prayer, she found herself feeling “an earnest desire that, in calling on God, he should say, Father.” She asked herself, “Can I now at this time, with the confidence of a child, and without the least misgiving of heart, call God my Father?”

In consequence of this reflection, she recorded, “I felt a strong desire to be alone with God,” and withdrew to her chamber. In the moments that followed, she continued:

The presence of God was so near, and so real, that I seemed scarcely conscious of any thing else. God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, seemed as distinct persons, both manifesting their inconceivable loveliness, and mildness, and gentleness, and their great and immutable love to me. . . .

The peace and happiness, which I hereupon felt, was altogether inexpressible.

Having the love of your life say you can still be friends is like having your dog die and you mom saying you can still keep it.

Spread love everywhere. Let no one come to you without leaving happier.

Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of live, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.