"Mother has a way of making each child know he means something very special to her. Not just as one of the group, but as an individual person who has his own special claim on her heart" (Chapter 1, p. 3).

"Well, what she had feared had happened, and tears would not wash out a word of it. So she gave his speech in London and presided for him in Prague. And she was not afraid any more" (Chapter 1, p. 7).

"Before she went to college, she had been a mainstay of the high school debating team, and drove her arguments home with such enthusiasm that her coach had to tell her she was supposed to stump her opponents, not tree them" (Chapter 6, p. 58)

"In a person's lifetime there may be not more than half a dozen occasions that he can look back to in the certain knowledge that right then...