Regina Brett

“Most of life is showing up. You do the best you can, which varies from day to day.”

“It takes courage to sit on a jury. How many of us want to decide the fate of another person's life or freedom? How many of us want to hold that kind of power in our hands?”

“Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don't worry; God never blinks.”

“Be eccentric now. Don't wait for old age to wear purple.”

“When you have cancer, it's like you enter a new time zone: the Cancer Zone. Everything in the Tropic of Cancer revolves around your health or your sickness. I didn't want my whole life to revolve around cancer. Life came first; cancer came second.”

“What other people think of you is none of your business.”

“Some days, 24 hours is too much to stay put in, so I take the day hour by hour, moment by moment. I break the task, the challenge, the fear into small, bite-size pieces. I can handle a piece of fear, depression, anger, pain, sadness, loneliness, illness. I actually put my hands up to my face, one next to each eye, like blinders on a horse.”

“If you want to lose 40 pounds, you order salad instead of fries. If you want to be a better friend, you take the phone call instead of screening it. If you want to write a novel, you sit down and write a single paragraph. It's scary to make major changes, but we usually have enough courage to take the next right step.”

“God isn't present in the past or future. The great 'I Am' is in the present moment. When I claim that presence, I can get through anything today.”

“Back when I was dating, the dreaded C word was Commitment. As soon as most men found out I had a child, they ran. If I ever got close enough to say the words, 'I love you,' they ran faster.”

“We are all on a journey of faith, and we have to polish that faith.”

“We all have a personal pool of quicksand inside us where we begin to sink and need friends and family to find us and remind us of all the good that has been and will be.”

“My daughter finished high school the same month I got my master's degree. I'm glad I didn't know when I gave birth to her at 21 what it would cost in terms of time, money and sacrifice to bring her to that graduation day.”

“I usually give a book 40 pages. If it doesn't grab me by then, adios. With young adult books, you can usually tell by Page 4 if it's worth the time. The author establishes the conflict early, sometimes in the first sentence. The themes of hope, family, friendship and overcoming hardship appeal to most everyone.”

“We've come a long way from having one land line that was forbidden to be answered during dinner. We had no answering machine, just a dad who barked, 'Who calls during dinner? If it's important, they'll call back.' He was right.”

“My daughter had carried within her a story that kept hurting her: Her dad abandoned her. She started telling herself a new story. Her dad had done the best he could. He wasn't capable of giving more. It had nothing to do with her. She could no longer take it personally.”

“Greet every morning with open arms and say thanks every night with a full heart. Each day is a precious gift to be savored and used, not left unopened and hoarded for a future that may never come.”

“If no one shopped on Thanksgiving Day, the stores wouldn't open. End of story. I say we all take the pledge and stay home. Thanksgiving is a day to give thanks for what you have, not to save a few dollars to get more.”

“Family is more than DNA, more than who we used to be, more than we can imagine we will become.”

“The only gift my dad ever bought me is still in my jewelry box. It died at 10 minutes to 11 decades ago, but the gold Caravelle watch keeps my dad alive. A watch isn't about keeping time. It's about stopping it.”