But even though all this was going on at home, if someone had tried to take me away and put me in a children’s home, I couldn’t have handled it. Even though my mother was very brutal, it was my home.

Sure, I’ve had some bad times, but everybody does. But people don’t get to talk about them like I do, unless they do to a therapist. People don’t get to put them in the paper like I do.

It’s taken me a long time to become the person I am, for all the ugliness to fall away. The rotten flesh is gone, and the seed is there. I can touch that now.

I know it sounds crazy, but I have had far more connection with my parents after their deaths.

When Kate was born, she was born into a world of joy and happiness and confidence. The difference between the children is night and day. She’s happy, she’s thriving, she’s full of self-confidence. I tell her she’s beautiful every day before I send her off to school.

But I married a guy who treated me very badly, but I was happy. I was miserable, so I was happy.

If I was in love with someone, I would get their picture out of the school yearbook and do portraits. If I was curious about sex, I would draw pictures of it. There were no books for me to look at. Then I would go find my father’s matches to burn the paper.

I’ve always felt that life is a novel, and part of it is written for you, and part of it is written by you. It’s up to you to write the ending, ultimately.

You think about child abuse and you think of a father viciously attacking a daughter or a son, but in my family it was my mother. My mother, I would say, was a… very brutal disciplinarian.

I’ve had some tremendous adventures, good and bad. It’s part of the novel, and a novel isn’t interesting if it doesn’t have some good and bad. And you don’t know what good is if bad hasn’t been a part of your life.

You see, anything I imagined, I could draw.

Complaining is good for you as long as you’re not complaining to the person you’re complaining about.

The most profound statements are often said in silence.

I loved the Little Lulu stories, where she would fantasize that her bedroom rug would turn into a pool of water, and she could dive down into the center of the world.

Aaron and I will be joined at the hip until the day we die. We have loved and hated each other since the day he was born. He’s very much a part of my heart. He’s going to broadcasting college now, and he’ll do fine. But he came into a world that did not welcome him.

Yes, and when I had Aaron, he left me, and I didn’t know how to raise a child. And I wasn’t close to my parents, and because I was too proud to go to my parents for help, I mistreated that little baby. I didn’t want a baby.

Only a couple of times have I ever been to church and felt enlightened by it.

Mom and Dad would stay in bed on Sunday morning, but the kids would have to go to church.

And my father was a comic. He could play any musical instrument. He loved to perform. He was a wonderfully comedic character. He had the ability to dance and sing and charm and analyze poetry.

My brother was a great audience, and if he liked the picture, he would laugh and laugh and laugh, and he would want to keep the picture. Making people laugh with an image I had created… what power that was!

My mother was a very literate person who had educated herself. She had an exceptional vocabulary.

That’s what my mother did. And my father was the first person she’d met who treated her kindly. She was terrified of men, and she married a very meek, kind, dear man. And she had the upper hand. She ruled the roost.

I often think you bring unhappiness on yourself, because if you don’t like yourself very much, you allow yourself to be influenced by people who reinforce that.

I was just so lucky to have a wonderful life after a tough marriage.

After I got this job at the syndicate, I started sending them money so they could go on trips and do the things they could never afford to do. All the while, I never knew that my mother was socking money away.

But even though all this was going on at home, if someone had tried to take me away and put me in a children’s home, I couldn’t have handled it. Even though my mother was very brutal, it was my home.

No matter how old you are, there’s always something good to look forward to.

In a way, a certain amount of self-criticism is a good thing, because it keeps you humble. Realizing that no matter what success you’ve achieved, you can still make enemies makes you humble, too.

People never knew we were poor, but out of that poverty came the most incredible inventions – board games, recipes… we never stopped inventing.