The idea you can tell a writer of a specific religion to stop writing about that religion is presumptuous.

Divorce isn't such a tragedy. A tragedy's staying in an unhappy marriage, teaching your children the wrong things about love. Nobody ever died of divorce.

I've learned that some broken things stay broken, and I've learned that you can get through bad times and keep looking for better ones, as long as you have people who love you.

Sometimes the worst thing that happens to you, the thing you think you can't survive...it's the thing that makes you better than you used to be.

You should be concerned about the state of your soul, not the state of your bank account.

He loved me. He loved me, but he doesn't love me anymore, and it's not the end of the world.

Everyone has sorrow. Everyone has obligations. Everyone keeps going. You lean on the people who love you. You do the best you can, and you keep going.

People will want you to behave a certain way, to make a certain choice because it reinforces the way they see the world...But you have to do what's right for you.

My feeling about my own work is, I could be writing 'The Aeneid' and they would still have to call it chick lit or mommy lit or menopausal old hag lit.

Head's all empty, I don't care,' he'd sing to me, quoting the Grateful Dead, and I'd force a smile, thinking that my head was never empty and that if it ever was, you could be darn sure I'd care.

Read everything. Read fiction and non-fiction, read hot best sellers and the classics you never got around to in college.

When there is not a single special person in your life, you have so many special things for saying, and when you have so many special people, you cannot even find one special word for them.

I may be helping to bring harmony between people through my music.

I'm going to buy some green bananas because by the time I get home they'll be ripe.

The soul that acquires the virtue of forgiveness won't find any more trouble. No matter what happens, he will know how to run his life.

I want to hear the word 'cherish' about 5 times.

To me, Romney is 'Our Idiot Brother', and Obama is 'The King's Speech'. You can spend all the money in the world. If you've got a bad product, it doesn't matter.

There is no path to peace; peace is the path.

Faith supplies staying power. Anyone can keep going when the going is good, but some extra ingredient is needed to keep you fighting when it seems that everything is against you

Condemned to violence, arrested by pain. Inside the soul lies a man insane.

We must not allow this generation to produce record numbers for the juvenile justice, runaway and homeless youth, or foster care systems.