Then he remembered Ralph's words--"no point in fighting your war over and over until you get it right.

Scars are just another kind of memory.

That's how life goes on - protected by the silence that anesthetizes shame.

It is a luxury to do something that serves no practical purpose: the luxury of civilization.

From when she was a baby, Tom has taught the girl to respect, but not fear, the forces of nature- the lightning that might strike the light tower on Janus, the oceans that batter the island.

Your family's never in your past. You carry it around with you everywhere.

To make sense of it - that's the challenge. To bear witness to the death, without being broken by the weight of it.

Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day.

You have only to forgive once. To resent, you have to doit all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things" Frank to Hannah Roennfeldt

The only thing we can do is love that little girl as much as she deserves. And never, never hurt her!

What are you suggesting I do Ralph?’‘I’m suggesting you tell the bloody truth whatever it is. The only place lying leads is trouble.’“Sometimes that’s the only place telling the truth get you, too.

Getting a mentor is the shortcut to success.

I wonder whats wrong with me. Sometimes I just keep wanting to go deeper and deeper into the world of self destruction. Like as if I want to see myself fail completely and disappear.

But you could only remake your own future, not anyone else's, and for some people that just wasn't good enough.

And I like those authors best whose scenes describe my own situation in life-- and the friends who are about me whose stories touch me with interest, from resembling my own homely existence.

I'm a more skilled writer now, but after 23 books it's harder to be fresh and that's really important to me. I don't want to write the same thing over and over again.

Sometimes music, movies and books are the only things that let us feel like someone else feels like we do.

This country already has a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy. We have to offer an alternative vision.

A good education consists in knowing how to sing and dance well.

He's not my step brother technically, so I think it's okay that I kissed him once.

Home, the spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest.