199 Quotes by Regina Brett

I grew up Catholic. We went to confession on Saturday, stood in the shortest line, since it led to the priest who gave the easiest penance - usually a few Our Fathers and Hail Marys. We confessed in private, prayed our penance and our souls were clean.

I always felt that at the moment I was born, God must have blinked. He missed the occasion and never knew I had arrived. My parents had 11 children. While I love them and my five brothers and five sisters deeply, some days I felt lost in the litter.

A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

When I was 41, I found a lump the size of a grape in my right breast. I ended up bald, sick and exhausted from surgeries, chemo and radiation treatments. Ah, but I got to live.

Going through chemo is like investing money in a retirement account. You feel the hit right now, but later in life you get to reap the benefits - by still being alive.

For me, being Catholic was who I was and who I am, just like I'm Irish and Slovak. It's just so ingrained in us.

Family is more than DNA, more than who we used to be, more than we can imagine we will become.

The idea of being stuck in a plane with dozens of people chatting over each other on their phones might feel like Dante's 10th circle of hell.

As much as the Pulitzer is the hallmark of journalism, I think what I love the most is when somebody says they took my column and it's in their wallet. I have had people open their wallet and show me a corner of a column.