In a way, “failure” is just another word for “the journey,” for not being there yet but on the way. It’s the road we walk on to get wherever it is we’re trying to go.

That's how you know you really trust someone, I think; when you don't have to talk all the time to make sure they still like you or prove that you have interesting stuff to say.

When the reader and one narrator know something the other narrator does not, the opportunities for suspense and plot development and the shifting of reader sympathies get really interesting.

The kind of life I want is to be a person who would get a personal note every day.

Try a little tenderness.

I remember being in high school and listening to Vivaldi's 'Winter' and being so overwhelmed with emotion.

It makes me think of Lazarus. He must have had those shadows after his miracle. You don't spend time in the tomb without it changing you, and everyone who was waiting for you to come out.

I had them all fooled into believing I was normal and well-adjusted, a rock of sensibility who could always be counted on to have a positive attitude.

Life was mostly made up of things you couldn’t control, full of surprises, and they weren’t always good. Life wasn’t what you made it. You were what life made you.

Because love, love is never finished. It circles and circles, the memories out of order and not always complete.

When the remembering was done, the forgetting could begin.

Amy [Winehouse] changed pop music forever, I remember knowing there was hope, and feeling not alone because of her. She lived jazz, she lived the blues.

Love your children while they are young. Because they grow up soon enough, and then… then the have no need of you.

To admire me is to admire my silence, Petra HermansSeptember 5, 2016

In pluralistic, democratic societies, there is the freedom to adopt the religion of your choice. This is good. This lets curious people like you run around on the loose!

One's range [of ideas] is limited by one's interests and imagination and by one's passion.

I am inspired by human sexuality. The act itself is mechanical and holds little interest to me.

I never wanted to end up in entertainment; that wasn't the goal.

When there are thoughts, it is distraction: when there are no thoughts, it is meditation.

The more you think you know, the more closed-minded you'll be.

What! All this for a song?