If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you are reading it in English, thank a soldier.

Don't waste your love on somebody, who doesn't value it.

A beautiful day begins with a beautiful mindset

Dream it. Wish it. Do it.

You learn more from losing than winning.

Be stronger than your excuses.

Sometimes later becomes never. Do it now.

Dream without fear love without limits.

Push yourself, because no one else is going to do it for you.

Love is when you sit beside someone doing nothing, yet you feel perfectly happy.

Die with memories, not dreams.

My art career actually began under the kitchen table. My mother wanted to get me out of her hair while she cooked, so she laid out some paper and pencils on the floor under the kitchen table.

There's only one direction you can coast-downhill.

I like to listen to music that fits with what I'm writing. For each book, I've assembled a playlist, so readers can get a sense of what I was listening to while I was writing.

I find people who prejudge reality TV to be annoying. Art comes from anywhere. Culture can ooze out of any crack. Prejudging is the death of creativity.

I was hungry. I was cold. But I was also free. Free not to get up in the morning, not to go to bed at night, free to get drunk if I liked, to dream... to hope.

When my senior prom was happening, I was in Malta filming 'Troy.

[Patrick Leonard] is such a magnificent composer. I don't think there is anybody working today with those kind of skills that could translate one of my tunes into that really beautiful chamber music.

Reading is also a journey. It's a process of discovery.

It's the oasis," said the camel driver. "Well, why don't we go there right now?" the boy asked. "Because we have to sleep.

With an endless assortment of children and animals living under one roof, there was always some absurd crisis that gave comic relief to my problems.