I am in total silence when I write - I don't even like the sound of the dryer going - I like the quiet.

I look at my roommates who are so proud of me that it makes me proud.

That's when you know for sure somebody loves you. They figure out what you need and they give it to you - without you asking.

A good mother is irreplaceable.

I like it when my mother smiles. And I especially like it when I make her smile.

But what Mom never told me is that along the way, you find sisters, and they find you. Girls are cool that way.

We hang out, we help one another, we tell one another our worst fears and biggest secrets, and then just like real sisters, we listen and don't judge.

Mama always said a good family has one heartbeat. No one knows you like the people you live with, and no one will take up your cause to the outside world quite like your blood relatives.

I even love the smell of books.

I don't settle in any other area of my life when it comes to excellence, so why should I lower my standards when it comes to boys?

There are two kinds of people in this world. Those who want to know the facts, and those who want to make up a nice story to feel better. I wish I was the kind who made up stories.

The Good News is the gospel of glad-tidings.

Christ birth is the beginning of love for mankind.

Honesty is the only trick to not trick anyone.

Necessity used to be the mother of invention, but then we ran out of things that were necessary.

Fools act on imagination without knowledge, pedants act on knowledge without imagination.

You don't have to be the Dalai Lama to tell people that life's about change.

Never give power of attorney.

It is only by human experiences that we can interpret the Divine.

To create a housing shortage in a huge country, heavily wooded, with a small population -- ah, that's proof of pure political genius.

I've said what I'm prepared to say in my poems, and then journalists think that you're going to tell them a whole lot more.