And when you clear away the cobwebs of the description of every job in the world, at the bottom of that job is service. It's service. And I took that ethic and applied it to my writing craft.

I look at my roommates who are so proud of me that it makes me proud.

That's when you know for sure somebody loves you. They figure out what you need and they give it to you - without you asking.

A good mother is irreplaceable.

I like it when my mother smiles. And I especially like it when I make her smile.

But what Mom never told me is that along the way, you find sisters, and they find you. Girls are cool that way.

We hang out, we help one another, we tell one another our worst fears and biggest secrets, and then just like real sisters, we listen and don't judge.

Mama always said a good family has one heartbeat. No one knows you like the people you live with, and no one will take up your cause to the outside world quite like your blood relatives.

I even love the smell of books.

I don't settle in any other area of my life when it comes to excellence, so why should I lower my standards when it comes to boys?

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who want to know the facts, and those who want to make up a nice story to feel better. I wish I was the kind who made up stories.

My hope fuels my determination to overcome any difficulty.

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.

It's so much easier to like people, and to let people in, to trust them until they prove that you should do otherwise. The alternative is being an iceberg.

Nothing is real but dreams and love.

Problem-solving typically involves the construction of discriminative stimuli

Oh, China. How I have missed you.' 'And I have missed you, Eliza. But don't worry, next time my aim will be better.

If we set our minds, we can achieve anything.

If I break my ankle right now, this Olympics wasn't meant to be.

The Senegalese conservationist Baba Dioum can summarize: "In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught."