Something contracts in my chest. The air shifts, grows heavy and dense as mud. Alexa twists her hair around her finger and whispers, "Didn't you even try to escape, Charlotte?

Some stories won't have a happy ending, but there's always hope that the next one will. Hope is everything. Even when there's nothing else. Especially when there's nothing else.

Dad thinks I'm ready to fly around the country as the Ambassador of Hope, but Mom thinks I'm a frail little bird with broken wings.

Hope is made of air, and wishes. An empty box wrapped in shiny paper.

My father is using me as a message of hope. My sister is using me as a message of fear.I don't want to be used by anybody.

Do it double, because some can't do it at all.

I say to my sister, "I thought you were doing the things in our Dream Book. I was sure of it." "Why would I do that stuff without you?" "Because you could.""Well, you were wrong.

He looked like some plant bleached by darkness.

Life itself is the best (and the only) timekeeper.

Have we forgotten about the children, and thus forsaken the next generation?

I think we need to take a step back and realize what the real issues are - it's not being from different places or being different.

The best tests of my Christian growth occur in the mainstream of life, not in the quietness of my study

When you reach the end of your life - trust me, you won't look back and savor the moments you spent alone.

If you understand the independent worker, the self-employed professional, the freelancer, the e-lancer, the temp, you understand how work and business in the U.S. operate today.

What you will be in your next life is the sum total of the realizations that you have had in this lifetime.

Businesses must invest in products and people in order to create new wealth.

To be alive is to be afraid, and much to our advantage in many cases, since alarm often preserves us from danger.