Like many women my age, I am 28 years old....

I couldn't have foreseen all the good things that have followed my mother's death. The renewed energy, the surprising sweetness of grief. The tenderness I feel for strangers on walkers. The deeper love I have for my siblings and friends. The desire to play the mandolin. The gift of a visitation.

Here's a thing about the death of your mother, or anyone else you love: You can't anticipate how you'll feel afterward. People will tell you a few may be close to right, none exactly right.

A line from one of my 1997 columns - 'Do one thing every day that scares you' - is now widely attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, though I have yet to see any evidence that she ever said it and I don't believe she did. She said some things about fear, but not that thing.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.

True terror is to wake up one morning and discover that your high school class is running the country.

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.

To me - old age is always ten years older than I am.

I cried on my 18th birthday. I thought 17 was such a nice age. You're young enough to get away with things, but you're old enough, too.

My best kiss was on stage. Kelly Rowland from Destiny's Child gave me a really nice soft kiss on my lips during a performance on my birthday. It was amazing.

The age of a woman doesn't mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.

I think women should start to embrace their age. What's the alternative to getting older? You die. I can't change the day I was born. But I can take care of my skin, my body, my mind, and try to live my life and be happy.

Few women, I fear, have had such reason as I have to think the long sad years of youth were worth living for the sake of middle age.

Wives are young men's mistresses, companions for middle age, and old men's nurses.