“Fear of the Dark I’ve always been prone to worry and anxiety, but after I became a mother, negotiating joy, gratitude, and scarcity felt like a full-time job. For years, my fear of something terrible happening to my children actually prevented me from fully embracing joy and gratitude. Every time I came too close to softening into sheer joyfulness about my children and how much I love them, I’d picture something terrible happening; I’d picture losing everything in a flash. At first I thought I was crazy. Was I the only person in the world who did this? As my therapist and I started working on it, I realized that “my too good to be true” was totally related to fear, scarcity, and vulnerability. Knowing that those are pretty universal emotions, I gathered up the courage to talk about my experiences with a group of five hundred parents who had come to one of my parenting lectures. I gave an example of standing over my daughter watching her sleep, feeling totally engulfed in gratitude, then being ripped out of that joy and gratitude by images of something bad happening to her. You could have heard a pin drop. I thought, Oh, God. I’m crazy and now they’re all sitting there like, “She’s a nut. How do we get out of here?” Then all of the sudden I heard the sound of a woman toward the back starting to cry. Not sniffle cry, but sob cry. That sound was followed by someone from the front shouting out, “Oh my God! Why do we do that? What does it mean?” The auditorium erupted in some kind of crazy parent revival. As I had suspected, I was not alone.”

“You sold out! We elected you, and you sold out! The next time we have an election, I think everyone should vote for himself. Or we might just as well vote for Charlie Brown! Yes, next year we may even say, 'You're elected, Charlie Brown!”

“I once dreamt of being a writer, to have my words known by many from many countries; this dream i dreamt came true...so why cant your dream come true too? Rayvon L Browne does not believe in the word cant - Rayvon L Browne”

“I dont want to hear the words "NOT POSSIBLE" they dont exist in my world - Rayvon L Browne”

“Love, hope, fear, faith - these make humanity; These are its sign and note and character”

“One day you will wonder what was so important that you put off doing the most important things. 'Someday' can be a thief in the night.”

“Leave people to their opinions and judgments. They cannot harm you; it is their understanding that is faulty, not yours. Leon Brown”

“I never said you had to like it. You have to accept it. No regret." - Clare Harding From the current book in writing BUMPKIN by Lani Brown.”

“All my life, the library has always been one of my favorite places to go. (Larry Brown: A Writer's Life by Jean W. Cash)”

“Consider this simple thought. The Lord could have made everything brown. Brown grass, brown flowers, brown sky, brown sea. But He didn't. There is much for us to enjoy in the variety and the beauty of His creation. These things illustrate His essential goodness. God is good. His goodness is seen in all His works.”

“The protests and pain over the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown had me wondering if we can ever experience the world as others do. For no matter how disputed the circumstances of both cases, many people see what happened in black and white.”