Ana was a tornado. A jagged, hundred-sided peg in a community where everyone was supposed to fit into round holes.

The women glare at each other. Grin. You have friends when you're fifteen years old. Sometimes you get them back.

Humanity has many shortcomings, but none is stronger than pride.

Just because you don’t like peanut butter doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t like . . . peanuts.

You can love something without loving everything about it. You don't have to feel embarrassed about not being proud. That applies to hockey, but it also applies to friends.

What is a community? It is the sum total of our choices.

The worst thing about having power over other people's lives is that you sometimes get things wrong.

The very worst events in life have that effect on a family: we always remember, more sharply than anything else, the last happy moments before everything fell apart.

Never trust people who don't have something in their lives that they love beyond all reason.

Everyone has a thousand wishes before a tragedy, but just one afterward.

Winners have a tendency to be forgiven in this town.

History says, Don’t hopeOn this side of the grave, But then, once in a lifetimeThe longed-for tidal waveOf justice can rise up, And hope and history rhyme

There are three qualities that every individual must have to achieve success: a Monk’s patience, a Warrior’s courage, a Child’s imagination.

Heaven wheels above you, displaying to you her eternal glories, and still your eyes are on the ground.

You have to know what's happening in the locker rooms, you have to know what's happening at the grass-roots level. That's the best way to work.

The most striking thing about highly effective leaders is how little they have in common. What one swears by, another warns against. But one trait stands out: the willingness to risk.

It is better to learn war early from friends, than late from enemies.

How fragile our lives are anyway. How quickly things can change forever.

The process of writing, any form of creativity, is a power intensifying life.

I'd rather go to the White House Correspondents' dinner than any awards show.

Passion and strife bow down the mind