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.

No, you become a man when you first decide to put away the things of childhood, the talk of childhood, and the thoughts of childhood. You decide because you cannot be treated as both a man and a boy. Because you are either one or the other, but you are not both . . .

Be the greatest of who you were meant to be. Life goes on ferociously-with or without you. It is your choice. Truly and magnificently your choice.

Take off my clothes and there becomes a man. Take off my skin and there becomes my bones. Break all my bones and there becomes my heart. Smash my heart and there becomes my soul. And that you cannot take. And what is my soul?...It is everything that make a man. It is everything that makes this man.

Do not give a damn what "they" have to say (and you will know who they are) for you are either very right or very wrong, but at least you are very something.

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 might want more time in your life to attempt the things you like to do, and not just perform the things you have to do.

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 . . .

There’s so much to learn. So much to enjoy. So terribly much to be curious about. Take your life and run with it. Make a habit of being alive. This much of anything, I have learned. And am still learning.

I promise to dream with you both great dreams and small dreams. To ask your counsel in times of uncertainty. To honor your silence when you seek to be alone. To be ever wondrous at your curiosities and revelations. And to be ever rejuvenated by your passions . . .

Why travel? To be changed, and to be changed again and again.

I travel to be replenished with beauty, for travel makes the beauty of this world seem like a Christmas that never ends. I travel for the jolting, angelic act of seeking strangeness and newness and profoundness . . .

I want to remember warming your two a.m. bottle, clipping your locks, watching you be baptized, bathing you in the big porcelain sink… how I often laid you against my chest and felt the cradlesong of your tiny breaths as you fell asleep . . .

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. Besides, to be wise and eighteen is as possible as catching lightning in a bottle…

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.

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

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 . . .

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

Summer, dropping so easily a delicious everything upon your skin and lips. Like a never-ending kiss—taunting, deep, and luscious. The sun. The heat. The thousand echoes of a timelessness before time, when every day seems longer than the next and no day seems likely to ever truly end. Summer.

Summer, dropping so easily a delicious everything upon your skin and lips. Like a never-ending kiss - taunting, deep, and luscious.

Teach them what you love to do in life. It really doesn't matter what it is. It never does. Just show them how important a passion is . . .

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? . . .

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?

I wish I could wrap up the glitter star-green of this moment and hand it to you like an angel gift. Give you the heat lightning flying in jagged silence over the distant mountains. And the smell of September prairie grass and the even fainter scent of October pine now descending . . .