I have witnessed the softening of the hardest of hearts by a simple smile.

Ditzy dumb blonde? I can be ditzy. I can be.

You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it.

There are three words I like to repeat to myself: glass half full. Just to remind myself to be grateful for everything I have.

We have to embrace obstacles to reach the next stage of joy

We need to have empathy. When we lose empathy, we lose our humanity.

At 11 years old I made a very definitive decision. And my decision was that I wanted to be happy.

The only thing that will make you happy is being happy with who you are, and not who people think you are.

The biggest lesson we have to give our children is truth.

Why not just live in the moment, especially if it has a good beat?

Stress is something that's created in the mind, basically. It's how we look at things. So ovr greatest defense against stress is the ability to change ovr minds; to change ovr thinking.

Let the letters clash forming an invisible meaning of a sunny night, freezing chimney, and silent screams. When words betray you, hold on to your imagination.

I'd found him, and he was mine - cute little bugger that he was, messed up glasses, funky shoes and all.

Agape is the concrete commitment to the flourishing of someone or something outside of oneself. Even and perhaps especially when that flourishing, hence the joy, is threatened.

Forensics had taught her that scars left tissue much tougher than skin.

I like narrative storytelling as being part of a tradition, a folk tradition.

I think it has most to do with the way in which a story is told, whether it feels real either via the music of the telling or the honesty of the story.

Beauty is and always will be blue skies and open highway.

History is on the side of the regulators.

I'm so interested in the brain. I read true crime.

Reading just had a great five-man move that involved everyone.