In quiet moments, I love to read.

The most important advice I can offer is that writing is a craft that you can learn by practicing. If you keep writing, you will improve.

Many writers are afraid of writing something bad, so they dont try or give up when their efforts dont lead to a masterpiece right away. If you work at it, you will improve.

Being in love is one of the most powerful experiences anyone can have. I think that's why we have crushes when we're younger. Maybe it's how we get ready for real love.

That was how it always was with Colleen: No matter how sad she felt, there was always this little bit of hope - like a speck of glitter caught in your eyelash - that never went away, no matter what.

Colleen had this idea -- a faded, crumpled, smudged idea -- that being nice counted for something.

I guarantee you that after you die you will not say 'I spent too much time praying

You can only overcome a negative attitude with a positive attitude.

I feel like a crumpled up piece of paper that has something really important written on it. But no one will ever know what that is because all they see is something that's been discarded.

I wanted to be a politician and a movie star. But I was born a writer. If you're born that, you can't change it. You're going to do it whether you want to or not.

Life's true gift is the capacity to enjoy enjoyment.

The uninformed must improve their deficit, or die.

This is an area where North Carolina does excel. I have known more colorful North Carolina political figures than I have colorless ones.

Fear may fill our world, but it doesn’t have to fill our hearts.

There is in every one of us, even those who seem to be most moderate, a type of desire that is terrible, wild, and lawless.

We are the heirs of the ages