I'm alone and outgunned, scared and inexperienced, but I'm right.

In life, finding a voice is speaking and living the truth. Each of you is an original. Each of you has a distinctive voice. When you find it, your story will be told. You will be heard.

One thing you really have to watch as a writer is getting on a soapbox or pulpit about anything. You don't want to alienate readers.

You live your life today, Not tommorow, and certainly not yesterday.

Prisons are fascinating places, especially when the inmates are educated white-collar types.

Jesus preached more and taught more about helping the poor and the sick and the hungry than he did about heaven and hell. Shouldn't that tell us something?

When witnesses concoct lies, they often miss the obvious.

If you're gonna be stupid you gotta be tough.

When you work at street level you never know who's going to walk through your door.

Shame was an emotion he had abandoned years earlier. Addicts know no shame. You disgrace yourself so many times you become immune to it.

judge not that ye be not judged

It's not about going around trying to stir up trouble. As long as you're honest and you articulate what you believe to be true, somebody somewhere will become your enemy whether you like it or not.

Horses were never wrong. They always did what they did for a reason, and it was up to you to figure it out.

I just need to come to the park every day thinking something good is going to happen to me and hoping today is going to be the day.

When someone you know passes on, the only thing you can do is keep moving forward.

The mother of three notoriously unruly youngsters was asked whether or not she'd have children if she had it to do over again. 'Yes', she replied 'but not the same ones.'

She was quiet for a moment or two. Then she said: Cruel words are a terrible thing, Quash. Sometimes you regret them. But what's been said cannot be unsaid.

Astonishingly, not all girls get dressed just to please men.

Sometimes altering your position is the right thing. Sometimes it's not.

men cannot be free in a nation where women are forbidden freedom.

At one point I felt a tension between objects, their real, physical lives, and the idea of meaning: the physical, material reality of a book, and the totally intangible experience of reading it.