If we share our shame story with the wrong person, they can easily become one more piece of flying debris in an already dangerous storm.(page 10)

Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we're supposed to be and embracing who we are.

Don't try to win over the haters; you are not a jackass whisperer.

Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.

Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage. Truth and courage aren't always comfortable, but they're never weakness.

Daring greatly means the courage to be vulnerable. It means to show up and be seen. To ask for what you need. To talk about how you're feeling. To have the hard conversations.

What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful.

Believing that you're enough is what gives you the courage to be authentic.

Shame hates it when we reach out and tell our story. It hates having words wrapped around it - it can't survive being shared. Shame loves secrecy... When we bury our story, the shame metastasizes.

When we deny our stories, They define us. When we own our stories, we get to write the ending.

Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.

Besides, we were fifteen, and we couldn't get our feelings to match up with our brains. So we went with our feelings.

Nostalgia is best cured via horse whipping.

What we're fighting against isn't an out-and-out vice. It's an overgrown, perverted virtue.

The bloody times, the horror, will just be history to them, words on a page, so how will they dare to judge? Very easily, I should imagine.

When you heart and soul are in it, making love is not just special, Maryah-- it's magical.

I see myself as the best footballer in the world. If you don't believe you are the best, then you will never achieve all that you are capable of.

I've been melted into something too easy to spill. I make more and more of myself in order to make more and more of the baby. He takes it, this making. And somehow he's made more of me, too.

What happens tomorrow is but the shadow of thoughts we held today.

If someone has offended you, start sowing forgiveness. You may need some yourself someday.

Down these mean streets a man must go who is neither tarnished nor afraid