The same men who are placing all these outrageous restrictions on women’s freedoms in southern Somalia – that type of mentality – that’s what I had to deal with in captivity.

Every day I have many choices to make about who I want to be.

I think it's the human spirit inside of all of us that has an enormous capacity to survive.

The road to recovery will not always be easy, but I will take it one day at a time, focusing on the moments I've dreamed about for so long.

I'm afraid of elevators, because they are an enclosed space, but I get in.

Contemplating Christmas when you are isolated and far from home brings its own unique pain.

Christmas was the one time of year when my brothers surfaced at home, when my parents and grandparents congregated to eat my mother's roast turkey.

Getting on a plane is hard for me, but I do it, because travel is vital to me.

I've realized that the world is, in essence, full of banana peels - loaded with things that may unwittingly trip an internal wire in my mind, opening a floodgate of fears without warning.

I used my captors names every chance I had. It was intentional, a way of reminding them that I saw them, of pegging them, of making them see me in return.

Forgiving is not an easy thing to do.

Give me some sugar.

The one who doesn't travel, does not live.

The obsession with performance left no room for the development of the intuitive or spiritual impact of space and form other than the aesthetic of the machine itself.

We live in a very gynophobic society

Sometimes I trip on how happy we could be And so I put this on my life Nobody or nothing will ever come between us And I promise I'll give my life

The problem with spending your life climbing up the ladder is that you will go right past Jesus, for he's coming down.

Without my Vulcan cat suit, Frankenstein wig and pointed ears, I don't get recognized. I love the fact I'm a shape shifter who can go unnoticed.

I started playing guitar before I can really remember, and I started writing really early, too.

Ghostly things don't really scare me, but they really intrigue me.

Abundance is an expansion of energy. Abundance is a form of gratitude, a generosity, a modesty, a bow toward others - what we can give, what we can share, rather than what we can take.