Quotes from Jo-Ann Mapson

Mothers are only human, you turn it over to God and then you just wing it.

Highway One, Antarctica is a wonderful debut by a writer with razor-sharp insights to the human condition. Justin Herrmann is a voice I hope to hear more from, and soon. Excellent collection.

A willingness to lose one's self in a story was the first step to learning compassion, to appreciating other cultures, to realizing what possibilities the world held for people who kept at life despite the odds.

Sleep is just a good idea. I bow to the god caffeine.

It's my belief that animals can help a human being travel to the wounds of childhood. The best part is, once you go there, you can fix things. Get on with life.

Glory sipped her second glass of red wine, impatient for the slight buzz that made her edges blur.

Juniper laughed for real, but one of those fake smiles he considered a plague of the Caucasian race followed. If you're sad, be sad, he wanted to say.

Oh, Mama," I said. "What if I don't live that long?" My mother didn't hesitate one second. "By hook or by crook, you will. Having children only increases your grip on the world. It's like reading a thriller. You can't put it down because you have to know how the story turns out.

What ever was fair? What ever is? You put one foot in front of the other and you walk through all of it. And if you're lucky, like I am, on either side, you plant flowers.

Women hoped harder than men, he thought, sometimes hard enough to change the outcome of things.

Among items in the glass cold case were cheesecake, marzipan candies, The Owl & Moon's famous Chocolate Cherry Thunder fudge, and a round of sharp cheddar for the apple tarts. The nonrefrigerated case held all manner of pastries, sweet rolls, and berry pies. When the buckwheat rolls came out of the oven they went directly into pink boxes tied with kite string.

The Owl & Moon would never lack for customers. If a person came in for Chocolate Bomb cookies for her daughter's birthday, while she waited to have them boxed she'd smell the paper-thin rosemary-garlic Cheese Pennies, and pick up two dozen. Then she'd ask for a taste of the gleaming slab of Chocolate Cherry Thunder fudge.