I don't think I began to be a professional writer until I learned my weaknesses and what I couldn't do. This forced me to compensate.

I've had aunts and uncles who not only haven't read my books but could hardly believe that I was a writer.

I had my bully, and it was excruciating. Not only the bully, but the intimidation I felt.

It's amazing that the heart makes no noise when it cracks.

Everybody sins, Francis. The terrible thing is that we love our sins. We love the thing that makes us evil.

And he did see--that life was rotten, that there were no heroes, really, and that you couldn't trust anybody, not even yourself.

Why did the wise guys always accuse other people of being wise guys?

They don't actually want you to do your own thing, not unless it's their thing too.

I have lived a thousand lives lost within the pages of a book.

The possibility that hope comes out of hopelessness and that the opposite of things carry the seeds of birth - love out of hate, good out of evil. Didn't flowers grow out of dirt?

Affection is one of the most neglected words in the English language, that people throw the word love around like confetti when they mean affection.

It is a fine thing to establish one's own religion in one's heart, not to be dependent on tradition and second-hand ideals. Life will seem to you, later, not a lesser, but a greater thing.

Seeing race is always about discriminating, a discerning, trained eye recognizing the "essential" or defining characteristic in the individual that confers racial categorization.

There may be responsible persons, but there are no guilty ones.

Leaders flourish in times of crisis.

It was so incredible to be able to get the opportunity to make my own first album. I never expected to do that.

I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, which was in Carnegie Hall, which itself was exciting - just to walk into it.

I cook, I create, I'm incredibly excited by what I do, I've still got a lot to achieve.

Of course, there are a lot of things I'm angry about in the world.

To accomplish excellence or anything outstanding, you must listen to that whisper which is heard by you alone.

I planted a seed of hatred in my heart. I swore it would grow to be a massive tree whose roots would strangle them all.