If I get ideas independently of the act of writing, they never really fit. So for me, there's no hanging out, waiting for inspiration.

She would be half a planet away, floating in a turquoise sea, dancing by moonlight to flamenco guitar.

The phoenix must burn to emerge.

I know it feels like you have all these options and when you make a decision, you lose a world of possibilities. But the reality is, until you make a decision, you have nothing at all.

Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In life, knowledge of poisons is essential. I've told you, nobody becomes an artist unless they have to.

Their love as a dragonfly, skimming over echo park, stoppin to visit the lotus. Eating dreams and drinking blue sky.

How right that the body changed over time, becoming a gallery of scars, a canvas of experience, a testament to life and one's capacity to endure it.

It's such a liability to love another person.

Find someone who will tremble for your touch, someone whose fingers are a poem.

Memory is the fourth dimension to any landscape.

Beauty was empty as a gourd, vain as a parakeet. But it had power. It smelled of musk and oranges and made you close your eyes in a prayer.

Katey's the hottest bookworm you'll ever meet. If you took all the books that she's read and piled them in a stack, you could climb to the Milky Way.

There will be no enemy if you try to kill him with the power of your love.

Tiger the dog had a showdown with a fast moving flower truck in the middle of the street and lost.

I despise a person of little mind - one might as well not have any.

In the midst of our failed attempts at loving Jesus, His grace covers us.

Some people ask me whether I'm a 'mama's girl' or a 'papa's girl.' I'm nobody's girl. My brother clings to our parents; I'm the one shoving them out the door.

You win, you win. You lose, you still win.

You keep thinking that you'll never get burned, I just found me a brand new box of matches.

That's all the motorcycle is, a system of concepts worked out in steel.

Don't be afraid to do something unconventional, to take a chance, to risk something.