When I felt strongly I would say it strongly.

The trees were friendly, they gave me rest and shadowed refuge. Slipping through them, I felt safe and competent. My whole body was occupied. I had little energy to think or worry.

Beneath hot sun, desert roses bloomed. Under cold moon, I still refused to.

Water was liquid silver, water was gold. It was clarity—a sacred thing. Drinking was no longer something to take for granted. I’d never needed to consider water before.

There was so little I wanted to carry. Packing my backpack took me all of four minutes

The bravest thing I ever did was leave there. The next bravest thing I did was come back, to make myself heard.

I’d believed I needed to be steady in myself before I could function with others—but surviving alone no longer felt like a good way either.

I realized that the most empowering important thing was actually simply taking care of myself.

I was promising myself strength.I had to write it, say it, make the effort and fake it before I actually believed I could do it.

I was the director of my life, it was already true, and I would soon lead myself to my dreamed-of destinations.It was the task of my one thousand miles of solitude.

I no longer needed to peel myself of my skin, or to hide. To Dash the colorless ephemeral things that existed just beneath my surface were as vivid as the beauty marks he traced on my cheek.

Each tear being shed holds a thousand pounds of truth.

He liked to observe emotions; they were like red lanterns strung along the dark unknown of another's personality, marking vulnerable points.

What harm is there in dreaming, if it eases pain? What good is reality, if it blots out hope? Can a man's mind be washed without bleaching his soul?

Every girl needs a bestfriend to help her laugh when she thinks she'll never smile again

Life is nothing but rags and tags and filthy rags at that.

To know something, then, we must be scrubbed raw, the fasting heart exposed.

Life, in all its uniqueness, would not be life without the negatives and the positives.

Abroad, the balance of power is shifting. There are new and more terrible weapons - new and uncertain nations - new pressures of population and deprivation.

This is the sacrifice: the endless possibility that is offered up on the altar of the form.

Many people must live and die alone, even in Winesburg.