Real optimism is not the pep talk you give yourself. It is earned through the labor involved in emotional housekeeping.

You would be amazed by what you can give up, lose, or break, and yet still be a person who gets happy over brownies.

...handsome people are always interesting to watch. But a handsome person in crisis is riveting.

You need to grab your dream out of the sky like it's a kite and pinch the string through your fingers until you reach the spool.

I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions.

I can't tell you how much I love Target and Costco, that kind of culture, because it's something I never felt a part of. I've always felt like a tourist because I have never fit in anywhere.

Should I just sit down, right here at carousel seven, and shake until somebody's arms are around me and they're saying, 'It's okay, I'm here, I'm here, come with me to the institute.

You are allowed to be alive. You are allowed to be somebody different. You are allowed to not say goodbye to anybody or explain a single thing to anyone, ever.

His laugh is made if porch swings and lemonade

But I can also write in crappy motel rooms, while standing in line, or sitting in the dentist's chair.

I wouldn't want to waste any of my brain cells on forgiving if it's holding me back.

If I really wanted to say or ask anything important (to her imposing father) I could not trust my tongue to get it right.

He is like some sherry-crazed old dowager who has lost the family silver at roulette, and who now decides to double up by betting the house as well.

Our love is God, let's go get a Slushie.

America's still a very, very powerful symbol and a very important place of leadership for the world.

I've never been good at self-promotion. And my URL is really obscure. And for years and years, there was nothing about me on my website.

You have to fight for your privacy or you lose it.

The mystery of history is an insoluble problem.

You can be anything you want… But you must be strong first.

The Irish question is this: Do the Irish know the answer to everything? ... And the answer to that is that we know fifteen different answers to every question. All of them right.

There's nothing good about divorce.