Lynn Johnston

“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.”

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

“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.”

“Complaining is good for you as long as you're not complaining to the person you're complaining about.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“You see, anything I imagined, I could draw.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The most profound statements are often said in silence.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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!”

“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.”