I was beginning to feel compassion for myself.

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.

The most important step in the whole process was to just sit down and do it. My hobby has become a second career. Who knew?-Jamie Beck, Romance Novelist

American culture is torn between our long romance with violence and our terror of the devastation wrought by war and crime and environmental havoc.

I think it [Blu-ray] has 5 years left, I certainly wouldn't give it 10.

You've got to be smart to stay in this game. The quicker you learn, the quicker you succeed. You can't make the same mistakes over and over again.

Maybe God has a bigger plan for me than I have for myself.

Part of the reason we like democracy is it's the portfolio of decades, which is to say you don't also get the disastrous dictator who completely destroys a society, engages you in wars and so forth.

I'm an avowed modernist. I'm for the new thing. I came to the conclusion many years ago that rock music is essentially a conservative form.

Most of those people who saw themselves as literary types at university became bank managers.

I can't tell him I need him. I can't need him, period -- or really, we can't need each other, because who knows how long either of us will last in this war?

The Lord of the Rings trilogy restored the balance in the Force after the Star Wars prequels ruined everything that was awesome about being a nerd at the movies.