I felt like I belonged to an ancient tradition of all young people given this same task of finding their own ways through to the futures they wanted for themselves.

The trees were friendly, they gave me rest and shadowed refuge. Slipping through them, I felt safe and competent. My whole body was occupied. I had little energy to think or worry.

Beneath hot sun, desert roses bloomed. Under cold moon, I still refused to.

Water was liquid silver, water was gold. It was clarity—a sacred thing. Drinking was no longer something to take for granted. I’d never needed to consider water before.

There was so little I wanted to carry. Packing my backpack took me all of four minutes

The bravest thing I ever did was leave there. The next bravest thing I did was come back, to make myself heard.

I’d believed I needed to be steady in myself before I could function with others—but surviving alone no longer felt like a good way either.

I realized that the most empowering important thing was actually simply taking care of myself.

I was promising myself strength.I had to write it, say it, make the effort and fake it before I actually believed I could do it.

I was the director of my life, it was already true, and I would soon lead myself to my dreamed-of destinations.It was the task of my one thousand miles of solitude.

I no longer needed to peel myself of my skin, or to hide. To Dash the colorless ephemeral things that existed just beneath my surface were as vivid as the beauty marks he traced on my cheek.

In modern business it is not the crook who is to be feared most, it is the honest man who doesn't know what he is doing.

When Tom Ford asked me to consult for Gucci, I had never consulted in my life. I didn't know what consulting was, and look, we made something amazing.

To the uneducated, an A is just three sticks.

The only pain in pleasure is the pleasure of the pain.

Step by step you get ahead, but rarely in fast spurts.

Religion and science have always been matters of faith in something. It is the same something.

I do have a peripatetic and active intellectual curiosity.

How long is a girl a child? She is a child, and then one morning you wake up she's a woman, and a dozen different people of whom you recognize none.

Whatever else I know, I know that if you invest love and care in any individual you can help them to make a difference, to write their own life story.

It's a terrible thing that we cannot really trust the FDA or NCI (National Cancer Institute). We need, therefore, an independent scientific investigation.