But in college, we can wear our alcohol abuse as proudly as our university sweatshirts; the two concepts are virtually synonymous.

I once heard someone say that the concept of moderation seems a little extreme, and tonight...I agree.

I’ve been thinking I’d like to be Daisy; I’d like to have someone like Gatsby stare at my house for whole years and never stop dreaming of me

Like most women, I remember my first drink in tender minutiae.

I think statistics go in one ear and out the other. All of us respond to stories more than numbers.

I think for one, we have to really accept that anger is a normal human emotion that can be a positive force for change.

I have been a ballerina, a cheerleader and a sorority girl. I was the girliest girl alive.

Me? I'm just a literary girl gone wrong. Slow with the tongue. Quick with the pen. Undeniably cute. But, on the whole, ill-equipped for the privilege of living.

I can’t help thinking about memoir as a down-and-up process: Dive down for color; come up for context. Sink back down for action; climb back up for self-awareness and gratitude.

For the first month of school, writing is its own upper. Pounding on my computer keys feels like playing the piano, like arranging words into harmony that sings back to me.

I'm trying to figure out precisely which character flaw might be responsible for my latest life failure.

Suffering is the common lot of man.

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

The Pleiadians said that at a certain moment in the future, when we go through our transformation, the Earth plane will shift back to its original pristine self.

But once you become successful, everyone has an idea of what you should do.

All else being equal, the guy with the best genetics will have the best physique. But rarely are all things equal.

Feeling superior doesn't make one superior. Hubris does not humble others.

I've always gone for a kind of perfection.

With Crazy Horse, it's all one big, growing, smoldering sound, and I'm part of it. It's like gliding, or some sort of natural surfing.

I wanted to keep things as normal as possible for the trainees, so I led my usual morning class. I called it Magic Problem-Solving 101. The trainees called it Whatever Works.

I pass the test that says a man who isn't a socialist at 20 has no heart, and a man who is a socialist at 40 has no head.