I have been a ballerina, a cheerleader and a sorority girl. I was the girliest girl alive.

I once heard someone say that the concept of moderation seems a little extreme, and tonight...I agree.

But in college, we can wear our alcohol abuse as proudly as our university sweatshirts; the two concepts are virtually synonymous.

I’ve been thinking I’d like to be Daisy; I’d like to have someone like Gatsby stare at my house for whole years and never stop dreaming of me

Like most women, I remember my first drink in tender minutiae.

I think statistics go in one ear and out the other. All of us respond to stories more than numbers.

I think for one, we have to really accept that anger is a normal human emotion that can be a positive force for change.

Me? I'm just a literary girl gone wrong. Slow with the tongue. Quick with the pen. Undeniably cute. But, on the whole, ill-equipped for the privilege of living.

I can’t help thinking about memoir as a down-and-up process: Dive down for color; come up for context. Sink back down for action; climb back up for self-awareness and gratitude.

For the first month of school, writing is its own upper. Pounding on my computer keys feels like playing the piano, like arranging words into harmony that sings back to me.

I'm trying to figure out precisely which character flaw might be responsible for my latest life failure.

Eskimo: "If I did not know about God and sin, would I go to hell?" Priest: "No, not if you did not know." Eskimo: "Then why did you tell me?

God himself is pleading through us for people to be reconciled to him, if we prepare our body for him

If you are great, 'El Topo' is a great picture. If you are limited, 'El Topo' is limited.

The Copernican revolution brought about by Kant was, I think, the most important single turning point in the history of philosophy.

Live in the knowledge that you are a gift to the world.

There is no religion in which everyday life is not considered a prison; there is no philosophy or ideology that does not think that we live in alienation.

Among twelve apostles there must always be one who is as hard as stone, so that the new church may be built upon him.

I feel I have to protect myself against things. So I'm pretty careful to lose most of them.

Obviously, matches and all that stuff takes its toll on your body and so forth. But as you get sort of a bit older, a bit wiser, and a bit more experienced, you know also how to handle it.

Having a child at 55... that's optimism.