Because even if the whole world was throwing rocks at you, if you still had your mother or father at your back, you'd be okay.

The triumph of hope over experience.

All Chelsea's internet dates were gorgeous. Until she met them.

They were like animals, men. They found too much eye contact threatening.

She was always tired, these days. She put on one of those smiles that wasn’t really a smile at all, and they went on.

Real friends were the kind where you pick up where you’d left off, whether it be a week since you’d seen each other or two years.

Kind eyes under all the mascara.

A face whose emotions had not yet been battered by experience.

He dropped his head and kissed her. He kisses her and it was a kiss of utter certainty, the kind of kiss during which monarchs die and whole continents fall without your even noticing.

Because even if the whole world was throwing rocks at you, if you still had your mother or father at your back, you’d be okay.

She had the world’s worst poker face: her feelings floated across them like reflections on a still pond.

Good for you. More it hurt more better it is. Can't nothing heal without pain, you know.

Way to defuse a situation. It's tough to enjoy a good bloodbath in the middle of a PowerPoint presentation.

You can have anything you want if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an inner exuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world.

A lot of people don't realise I came out of the Smoky Mountains with a load of songs.

Ever eat so much you feel sick? Isn't that the best?

A sour religion is the devil's religion.

I think politicians do great things in the world, but I don't think they're the only ones who can. I don't like all the rhetoric and the finger pointing.

You need to know your craft.

It used to be only on TV that women could lead, that a show could be based on a woman

Engineering is the professional and systematic application of science to the efficient utilization of natural resources to produce wealth.