I have never been a pet lover or really craved the idea of having dogs.

Mary Lincoln provided Elizabeth Keckley with opportunities for social and economic advancement she probably had never imagined during her years as a slave, while Elizabeth offered Mary the loyal, steadfast friendship she craved but had always found so elusive.

Where is instruction in relationships, in the management of career, in the raising of children, in the pursuit of friendship, in the wise approach to anxiety and death? All this sort of stuff I craved to learn about when I was a student and down to this day.

If the town were a black hole, I was the helpless star being sucked into oblivion. It was an oblivion I craved.

I kept loving and loving and loving. Every waking hour, I marveled on how these moments would make made me feel. I wanted to love the world and be the change it so deliciously craved.

She craved for a hand that opens all the cages to set the animals free.

Sometimes I wore smiles but didn't feel them. Sometimes I felt them and didn't wear them. I didn't want her to know how much I craved this. I bit my bottom lip.

She craved a tall glass of the fresh-squeezed lemonade from the pitcher she'd left chilling in the fridge. Two glasses served with a generous slice of pound cake with orange glaze icing sounded twice as nice.

The truth is I didn't need therapy; I just needed to feel loved and know that someone out there craved my attention.

She craved a presence beside her, solid. Fingertips light at the nape of her neck and a voice meeting hers in the dark. Someone who would wait with an umbrella to walk her home in the rain, and smile like sunshine when he saw her coming. Who would dance with her on her balcony, keep his promises and know her secrets, and make a tiny world wherever he was, with just her and his arms and his whisper and her trust.

I was the first in my peer group to get pregnant. All I craved was reassurance. I needed someone to tell me that all the seemingly random symptoms I had - weird things such as excess saliva - were normal. And I was worried because I wasn't getting any morning sickness.

I've never had siblings I didn't grow up in a big family it was just me and my single mom. And hectic family dysfunction was actually something that I craved.