What I'm certain I don't want is to find myself someday in a new century, an old bitter woman looking back, wishing that right now I'd had more nerve.

Ask her what she craved, and she'd get a little frantic about things like books, the woods, music. Plants and the seasons. Also freedom.

We are not strong enough to stand up against endless grief, And yet pain is the constant drone of life. So if we are to have any happiness at all, it is only in the passing instant.

She always carried a book, though, in case she needed to read a few pages to avoid unwanted conversation.

Claim your space. Draw a circle of light around it. Push back against the dark. Don't just survive. Celebrate.

Thinking: this journey will be the axle of my life.

All I can say is that we are mistaken to gouge such a deep rift in history that the things old men and old women know have become so useless as to be not worth passing on to grandchildren.

Well, I'm a slow writer. For me, a good day is a page, maybe a page and a half. I'd love to be more efficient, but I am not.

I had never taken creative writing classes. Hadn't even considered it.

A lizard in the spring - hear his darling sing. A bird with wings to fly - go back to his darling weep and moan till he dies. A mole in the ground - root a mountain down.

He tried to name which of the deadly seven might apply, and when he failed he decided to append an eighth, regret.

You care so much for that special person because it feels like that person is part of you.

I certainly don’t have any interest in being on a dark veranda with any man except my husband, unlike some women do.” - Esther Norman

But no guy was worth being a girl guys cheated with.

I've never been a social person. When I grew up, the other girls would all be combing their hair and exchanging lipstick, and I just couldn't do that group thing.

To relate is to react. To react is to understand oneself. To understand oneself is to be enlightened. Relationships are schools for enlightenment.

I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets.

Turn away from mischief. Again and again, turn away. Before sorrow befalls you.

Every movie soaks into you for a certain amount of time.

I'm not barbie, and im alright with that.

We are all of us invented. We are all of us cobbled together from cartilage and dust. Few of us know with certainty the name of our maker. But I do... Bram Stoker.