It's always better to have what you have than to get what you wanted.

We are only as great as our struggles. We only become who we are in the face of them.

The human condition is imperfection. And that's how it's supposed to be.

Be brave with your life, so others will be brave with theirs.

We build our lives in moments, and even the ones we can't remember become the story of who we are.

Don't let anyone convince you that love doesn't matter.

Beauty comes from tenderness.

You don't have to be perfect to be awesome.

What matters most is how you respond to your heartbreaks and your disappointments and your fears. What matters most is who you become in response to them.

The best things about womanhood might possibly even be the conversations. The chatting. The gabbing. The whispering. The hands-on-hips eye-rolling. The yukking-it up.

Our lives disappear, even as we live them.

It was actually a women's writing group I belonged to in graduate school that gave me the courage to move from poetry to fiction.

Actors are always outsiders. It's necessary to be able to interpret - and that gets distorted when you become famous.

After I convinced them that I was a harmless novelist, I actually got them to give me a tour of the harem - which is usually off limits for tourists.

We worked and worked, didn't get anywhere. That's how you know you're doing research.

He is not poor who has the use of necessary things. [Lat., Pauper enim non est cui rerum suppetet usus.]

I am not failing - I am growing! Do you have the ability to reframe failure as growth in order to achieve your goals?

Some people pretend they never were in love and never wrote poetry; two weaknesses which they dare not own -- one of the heart, the other of the mind.

Titles of honor add not to his worth, who is himself an honor of his titles.

I think it's clear that women are treated terribly, and people are allowed to say horrible things about us.

If you're trying to make something funny, and it doesn't feel like you're always getting something, it doesn't have quite a lot of joy.