Personal experience is the lightning of the soul; it transforms the heart in ways that leave the brain behind.

You mustn’t be so open-minded that your brains fall out.

Addiction isnt about substance - you arent addicted to the substance, you are addicted to the alteration of mood that the substance brings.

There is no such thing as expecting too much.

Writers often write their best when they are feeling their worst

I believe that the memoir is the novel of the 21st century; it’s an amazing form that we haven’t even begun to tap…we’re just getting started figuring out what the rules are.

The actual American childhood is less Norman Rockwell and Walt Disney than Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allan Poe.

Dogs are great teachers. They are at home in the world. They live in the moment, and they force us to stay there with them. Dogs love us unconditionally, not for our bodies or bank accounts.

Womens currency is their looks. Like it or not, the most powerful woman is an 18-year-old woman.

Death is terrifying because it is so ordinary. It happens all the time.

Guilt is petty; I am above guilt.

Creativity is key to productivity and prosperity.

I can see lights in the distance trembling in the dark cloak of nightCandles and lanterns are dancing, dancing a waltz on All Souls Night.

In order to improve democracy, then, it's necessary to change the people, as Brecht ironically proposed.

Because I understand all the ways of trying to escape, how sometimes you escape one prison only to find you've built yourself a different one.

I wanted to do justice to texts that are in verse in their original, so I tried to invest my version with a comparable poetic power; hence even more literary fireworks there.

I feel like tiny bird with a big song!

Suzanne [Collins] was very involved in the development of the script. She wrote the first draft. She was very involved with Billy Ray, when he wrote his draft.

Every time I tour military outlets, I dedicate the food, fitness and set-ups to their service, because it all came to me through the military.

I'm a working mom. I've been working since I was 14 years old.

I realized that part of that anger was because I didn't know who I was and where I came from. I didn't know my history.