I don't have the time or the energy to hate, " says Shara. "I only wish to understand. People are what they are.

The gods are cruel not because they make us work. They are cruel because they allow us to hope.

And we convict almost every case, she thinks, because the law requires us to prosecute them for living their way of life.

One has no room for vengeance, ' says Shara, 'when the eyes of the world are watching. We must be judicious, and bloodless.

Envy the fire, for it is either going or not. Fires do not feel happy, sad, angry. They burn, or they do not burn.

Just because the nightmare you expected comes true, it doesn't make it any less terrifying.

I think you're wrong.""Think what you like.

When I come back to you, if I come back to you, will I know you? Will you be the city of my memory? Or will you be a stranger?

I will not see you, she tells the city, but I will remember you.

Refuse to be isolated. Your accomplishments are patronized by people who would get interest in them. When you don’t get connected, how will you get to know those people?

The real America that Whitman proclaimed and Thoreau decoded.

New York is notoriously inhospitable to the past disowning it whenever it can.

Don't ever go with the flow. Be the flow.

The lasting legacy of the Cooter Smash is that I'm the first to know when it's going to rain. That's right. I both sing and predict the weather with my hoo hoo.

Accept the fact that you're never gonna be someone else and embrace the fact that the world needs you as God made you to be.

MTV Awards are fun - it's MTV! You never know what's going to happen. It's a slice of pop culture in the moment, and you can't take it too seriously.

Most faults are not in our Constitution, but in ourselves.

You've got to just go do what you do - you can't really worry about who was attached to the movie before.

In my case, the long gaps between my books have got quite a lot to do with lack of confidence. A lot of the time when I'm not writing I start thinking I can't do it.