For example, 'Dibs'. As in, "I call dibs on the last Oreo."

I think that the deer sleep really well.

When I run, I change the future.

...in acknowledging the beauty in these people, ..I begin to notice it in other people...

The seasons melted around them, the trees filling with green and then blushing and shedding their seasons.

I'm certain real woodsmen don't say things like 'bark crumbs'.

It doesn't change the world. It changes me.

...she felt the fish there, hovering in her current, their mouths miming silent conversations.

Among all those stories, there were heroes. My brother Douglas was one of them.

...even the bus stops seemed to have ancient relics in them.

Each character learns that all of these things are waiting inside them, sometimes hidden and discovered, sometimes known and ignored.

He couldn't guess if we would have other flat tires...if we would be celebrating or scared...He only knew one thing.

The performers dropped in and out, wove into the music like a good conversation...

...packing away the big cooler wherever they put it so they won't forget, but always do.

I wrote in my journal: "Last night I slept with a man from Pakistan."

I have not been unhappy with the groundhog, per se, who I have named Ollie, because 'Per Se' is not appropriate.

Children run for the delight of it. It is freedom articulated, an exuberant, seemingly infinite expression of possibility.

All these people...and now...us.

Yes, I used a 'meta' metaphor.

I have never looked at a two-lane road again without wanting to know where it went.