Just the kind of girl I liked—the weirdo in the bunch.

Every true artist is at war with the world.

When you start putting pen to paper, you see a side of your personal truth that doesn't otherwise reveal itself in conversation or thought.

When I looked into her eyes, I saw an invisible spirit of something that I already loved.

Music itself was color-blind but the media and the radio stations segregate it based on their perceptions of the artists.

I had seen these transformations, people who had lost their will to live, coming back from their zombie states and radiating a new life force from their eyes.

Give her the continent and she wanted the hemisphere.

When you realize that there's a name and a description for this condition that you thought was insanity, you've identified the problem, and now you can do something about it.

My work was done, so it was time to start digging my grave again.

Every time you empty your vessel of that energy, fresh new energy comes flooding in.

I stopped hating and started just being. My whole life, I had been the most defensive person you'd meet, unable to tolerate any criticism. But now I started listening and being.

Experience is more important than knowledge.

There is no beauty like a face with a joyful smile.

Let your greatest possession be the ability to let go of any possession, joyfully.

Because there is a word for perfection, people will always imagine that they know it.

No, Mama. The sweetest hallelujah will be when Billie can walk in the front door of any place she pleases, and nobody will tell her she doesn't belong.

Maintaining my dignity is so important for me.

I think the company's [HP's] success will be my legacy. The company's failure will be my failure, with all the predictable consequences of that.

This is what I love about novels - both reading them and writing them. They jump into the abyss to be with you where you are.

It’s not the good that die young, it’s the lucky.

Any effort that has self-glorification as its final endpoint is bound to end in disaster.