A beloved daughter who now spent holidays alone.

He kissed me hard and I kissed him back harder, like it was the end of an era that had lasted all of my life.

There's no way to know what makes one thing happen and not another. What leads to what. What destroys what. What causes what to flourish or die or take another course.

I didn't feel sad or happy. I didn't feel proud or ashamed. I only felt that in spite of all the things I'd done wrong, in getting myself here, I'd done right.

In my perception, the world wasn't a graph or formula or an equation. It was a story.

Perhaps by now I'd come far enough that I had the guts to be afraid.

Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves...

In the mornings, my pain was magnified by about a thousand. In the morning there weren’t only those sad facts about my life. Now there was also the additional fact that I was a pile of shit.

What if I forgave myself even though I'd done something I shouldn't have?

There was the woman I was before my mom died and the one I was now, my old life sitting on the surface of me like a bruise.

But now that she was dying, I knew everything. My mother was in me already. Not just the parts of her that I knew, but the parts of her that had come before me too.

Positive mindset leads to positive self esteem.

Sometimes, lies were the same things as wishes. Sometimes, wishes were things to hate.

I will follow anyone... and remind everyone... that their fear is genuine.

Damaging the enemy financially is fair game.

Teachers deserve respect," I explain. "Why do they get it for free, when everyone else has to earn it?

I'm a very stereotypical person... and that's part of my flavor, I guess, because I tell it like it is.

Dear young people, put your talents at the service of the Gospel, with creativity and boundless charity.

The Dalai Lama challenged me - he said, 'Why can't you use technological tools to study kindness and compassion?

Life is short, so live extra lives. Read books.

I admire Brad Pitt, honestly, just because of how he started and the obstacles he had to overcome to have the career that he's had.