It's just that I've learned that somebody's appearance doesn't always match what's going on inside him. You can't look at a guy's face and see his demons.

Sometimes it was hard to express how much you loved someone. You said the words, but you could never quite capture the depth of it. You could never quite hold someone tightly enough.

Every family has a story, and I love that those stories are etched in sand rather than granite. That way we can change them. We can bury the lies and embrace the truth. And we can move forward.

No matter how many people care about you, she thought, if you can't be open with them about who you truly are, you're still alone.

I'd been a terrific student. I hadn't wasted a moment of my time in school, and I knew plenty about healing the troubled mind. But no one had taught me a thing about healing the soul

Sometimes coloring outside the lines can cost you. Only you can figure out if it’s worth it.

You got dealt some crappy cards. But you're the one who has to decide how to play them.

And I knew I would nevr have that everything's-right-in-my-world feeling again.

If you have a friend, a good friend, a woman you love, and you learn she’s done something abominable, do you stop loving her?

She felt happy these days, yet there was always an undercurrent of sadness just below the surface

You and me, " I said, "we both got the same kind of hurt inside us."She nodded, and suddenly, just like that, I knew I could trust her with my life.

to judge darkness as bad or wrong is akin to judging whether up is better than down, or whether blue is better than red

All maps are fiction when the world is seen from the sky. But if ten thousand dragons choose to believe in this one, I think you will find it nearer truth than otherwise.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

The people of South Carolina support conservatives who are trying to push real change, and the people of South Carolina expect their presidential candidates to back them up when they show courage.

Authentic femininity is a combination of class, tenderness and virtue. When a woman possesses these traits, a man will naturally want to be more of a gentleman around her.

I open to anything... just about anything.

Hip-hop is just something I actually know how to do. But I always had aspirations to participate in other forms of music.

The fan mail I get from kids are asking me questions which they do not ask their mothers and fathers. Because if they had, why write to me, a perfect stranger?

If you caricature friends in your first novel they will be upset, but if you don't they will feel betrayed.

The sign of death is weakness.