Before I'm a writer, I'm definitely a reader and when I read memoir, I really want it to be true.

You would be amazed by what you can give up, lose, or break, and yet still be a person who gets happy over brownies.

...handsome people are always interesting to watch. But a handsome person in crisis is riveting.

You need to grab your dream out of the sky like it's a kite and pinch the string through your fingers until you reach the spool.

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.

I can't tell you how much I love Target and Costco, that kind of culture, because it's something I never felt a part of. I've always felt like a tourist because I have never fit in anywhere.

Should I just sit down, right here at carousel seven, and shake until somebody's arms are around me and they're saying, 'It's okay, I'm here, I'm here, come with me to the institute.

You are allowed to be alive. You are allowed to be somebody different. You are allowed to not say goodbye to anybody or explain a single thing to anyone, ever.

His laugh is made if porch swings and lemonade

But I can also write in crappy motel rooms, while standing in line, or sitting in the dentist's chair.

I wouldn't want to waste any of my brain cells on forgiving if it's holding me back.

Without grace, there is no gratitude.

Art and science have so much in common - the process of trial and error, finding something new and innovative, and to experiment and succeed in a breakthrough.

Time and health are two precious assets that we don't recognize and appreciate until they have been depleted.

I believe in universal health care. And I am not afraid to say so.

This world is run with far too tight a rein for luck to interfere. Fortune sells her wares; she never gives them. In some form or other, we pay for her favors; or we go empty away.

In idle wishes, fools supinely stay. Be there a will and wisdom finds a way.

Dismiss thoughts of 'good, bad, right, wrong, success, failure' - be spontaneous.

Any writer who could handle all these different voices would deserve high praise, but to do so without any sense of jarring or incoherence is an extraordinary accomplishment.

Everyone goes to the forest; some go for a walk to be inspired, and others go to cut down the trees.

Love itself draws on a woman nearly all the bad luck in the world