Quotes from Patti Davis

The house I grew up in had large plate-glass windows, which birds frequently crashed into headfirst. My father helped me assemble a bird hospital, consisting of a few shoe boxes, some old rags, and tiny dishes for water and food.

Stories live in your blood and bones, follow the seasons and light candles on the darkest night-every storyteller knows she or he is also a teacher.

I'm very comfortable writing in the first person; it dives into the character in a way that's difficult if you're writing in the third person.

I think that nothing teaches you more about life than death and dying.

Some people, when they die, leave so much life behind that we wonder how they did it.

You know, if you hang around this earth long enough you really see how things come full circle.

Puppies, like all babies, grow up fast. Before long, Gracie was no longer barking at her reflection, instead offering a blase look that seemed to say, 'I know what that is now. I know it's not another dog.'

September 11 either made me love this country or it made me realize how much I already did. I think it's the latter. Seeing "Fahrenheit 9/11" made me think deeply about love of country - how it molds us, drives and emboldens us and how it can sometimes make us so angry, we want to shout out to the world: 'No, this is wrong.'

I think that my father would find it so confusing that people want to imitate him. Not because he didn't have confidence in who he was, but because he never imitated anybody. He was his own person.

The CIA created, armed and financed the Contras. My father backed them with everything he had. It was my father's war, and almost everyone in Nicaragua has lost somebody as a result of it. I couldn't go down there, being his daughter, and expect not to feel those people's wrath.

I did what most writers do when something happens that's overwhelming, fascinating, moving, all of that. I didn't know what else to do about it except write about it.

That is your legacy on this Earth when you leave this Earth: how many hearts you touched.

No one ever saw all of him. It took me nearly four decades to allow my father his shadows, his reserve, to sit silently with him and not clamor for something more.

Commerce is abusive. It's very hobbling to always be saying, 'Please let me put this out, this thing I've worked on for years.' It's like a nasty parent saying, 'No! Now go to your room.' As publishing companies got bigger, you felt even less significant.

Even if the Bush Administration had flung open the gates to stem-cell research years ago, we would not be at the point of offering treatment today. Christopher Reeve would still have been taken from us. But we would be closer.

Laura Bush went on national television during the week of my father's funeral and spoke out against embryonic stem cell research, pointing out that where Alzheimer's is concerned, we don't have proof that stem-cell treatment would be effective.

The memories that I have are mostly at our old ranch, out in Agoura. We used to go out there every Saturday. I can smell the oak trees. I can see it so clearly.

There is a point in the grieving process when you can run away from memories or walk straight toward them.

People love the way they're capable of loving-but that's not always how you want them to love or how you think they should love.

I have a feeling of reverence about my father being in his 80s - a feeling that I want to whisper, take soft steps, not intrude too much. He's like a stately old cathedral to me now.

Just think: people decided one day that a day should be set aside for motherhood and fatherhood. What a great concept that is.

I think people ultimately reveal themselves to everybody. I think that's the case with Sarah Palin's conduct, particularly after the Tucson shooting, I think she's sort of digging herself into a hole. I hope - I really hope.

I grew up in this era where your parents' friends were all called aunt and uncle. And then I had an aunt and an aunt. We saw them on holidays and other times. We never talked about it, but I just understood that they were a couple.

Texas governor Rick Perry's wife, Anita, has come out slugging in her glittering leopard-print jacket against what she sees as the unfair treatment of her husband. She tearfully said that he has been 'brutalized' for his faith.