I hesitate to use a pathologizing label, but underneath the so-called narcissistic personality is definitely shame and the paralyzing fear of being ordinary.

Daring to set boundaries is about having the courage to love ourselves, even when we risk disappointing others.

Shame is the most powerful, master emotion. It's the fear that we're not good enough.

There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.

Guilt is just as powerful, but its influence is positive, while shame's is destructive. Shame erodes our courage and fuels disengagement.

Social media has given us this idea that we should all have a posse of friends when in reality, if we have one or two really good friends, we are lucky.

When the people we love stop paying attention, trust begins to slip away and hurt starts seeping in.

Faith minus vulnerability and mystery equals extremism. If you've got all the answers, then don't call what you do 'faith.'

In many ways, September feels like the busiest time of the year: The kids go back to school, work piles up after the summer's dog days, and Thanksgiving is suddenly upon us.

The difficult thing is that vulnerability is the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I'm willing to show you. In you, it's courage and daring. In me, it's weakness.

First and foremost, we need to be the adults we want our children to be. We should watch our own gossiping and anger. We should model the kindness we want to see.

Theology is ignorance with wings.

There are times when I am so unlike myself that I might be taken for someone else of an entirely opposite character.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him

Writing fiction is a way of expressing feelings and revealing a certain truth about life, goals, dreams and desires.

Let the warning of the tyrants of the past be recognized for it shall be the same one ringing out when the tyrants of the present are unleashed.

There are many secrets in us, in the depths of our souls, that we don't want anyone to know about.

The hawk's cry is as sharp as its beak.

I'm all for Christianity, but insolence must be put down.

There is a hunger in every human being for approval.

Every time I feel mad or something, I run somewhere. It gets my frustrations away. I run and run and run.