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.

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

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

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.

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.

Carmen will always be free.

Growth is never an event, it's a process.

Mine first --mine last-- mine even in the grave!

Every human endeavor has leaders and followers, and your job as a leader is to inspire.

I have never felt any ethnic connection between the Greeks and me other than how hairy I am.

I am a Roman citizen.

Do not hide your ignorance, because somebody might help you! Hiding always prolongs the problems.

Entrenched scriptural literalism is, in my opinion, completely out of touch with reality.

To be desired by those who are themselves highly desirable is in itself an aphrodisiac.

I do think that what's wonderful in life is that we gain perspective as we take on different roles that are mind and heart opening.