Reading is a way to take in the difficult situations and understand them. The whole point of reading a book in class is to have discussion about what these situations are like.

The point is not to pay back kindness but to pass it on.

Each of us will have to make the choices that allow us to be the largest versions of ourselves.

It's like my whole world is coming undone, but when I write, my pencil is a needle and thread, and I'm stitching the scraps back together.

A novel is not, after all, a historical document, but a way to travel through the human heart.

I write to find out what I am thinking. I write to find out who I am. I write to understand things.

A book does not discriminate against any reader. All are welcome at the table of literature.

Don't plan it all. Let life surprise you a little.

Everyone needs a strong sense of self. It is our base of operations for everything that we do in life.

I admit that for me love goes deeper than the struggle, or maybe what I mean is, love is the deeper struggle.

Every writer can tell you that a book is only truly alive when it finds passionate readers who bring it alive in their imaginations.

The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshiped anything but himself.

Children content with parents who are physically close, tantalizingly so, but mentally elsewhere.

Man performs and engenders so much more than he can or should have to bear. That's how he finds that he can bear anything.

You know when you watch old movies, it's always the small parts you remember, the character actors who come in like a breath of fresh air.

How to obtain freedom has been, and is, mankind's most important quest.

If you Google 'regret and tattoo,' you will get 11.5 million hits.

They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.

Experiencing deep sadness can, sometimes, heighten your ability to feel joy.

Someone watches over us when we write. Mother. Teacher. Shakespeare. God.

Still hiding and afraid to let go. Waiting for you to find me uncover me and show me the way.