most of us, as we undergo the growing up process, do not get what we want or even what we should. We get what we have, and no more, and we find out how to make what we have work for us.

Better to be strong than pretty and useless.

What you cannot escape, you must fight; what you cannot fight, you must endure.

I went to the entrance to the restroom, where the hallway did a sharp bend so nobody could peek into the girls' pee-palace.

What you can't run away from, you have to face

Are you listening, little bird?

Christophe, with the careful tone of an adult telling a kid not to pet the nice foaming-rabid pooch.

If something is visceral and unsettling for me, my job is to not look away, not to punk out. Sometimes the dark things come from places inside me, experiences Ive had, that need to be transformed.

That's the funny thing about old hurts- they just wait for new heartache to come along and then show up, just as sharp and horrible as the first day you woke up with the world changed all around you.

His eyebrows drew together. He was perilously close to unibrow; I guess nobody had held him down and administered a good plucking to the caterpillar climbing across his forehead.

The only place their voices were left was in my head. It was better than being alone but it was so, so lonely.

The framing of a problem is often far more essential than its solution

Just don't take any class where you have to read BEOWULF.

Women always try to see the one good part of The Weird Guy because the dating landscape is so bleak. Women will say, 'He's very odd, but he likes to cook. He's creepy, but he makes good pancakes!'

I was born in India - but never really lived there.

Time is a great teacher, Who can live without hope?

Margaret Thatcher was a great leader for her nation at a pivotal and a perilous time. So, I find the comparison flattering, but that's up to others to say whether that comparison is justified.

There's nothing better than having a bottle of beer in your hand in the waves.

Man lives by bread alone, when there is no bread.

You have to be efficient if you're going to be lazy.

We pick up the lost bits and pieces, from the grass where we left them, and bring them with us into a future that will be made up of so much more as well.