Whoever named Himmel Street certainly had a healthy sense of irony. Not that is was a living hell. It wasn't. But is sure as hell wasn't heaven, either.

A snowball in the face is surely the perfect beginning to a lasting friendship.

Imagine smiling after a slap in the face. Then think of doing it twenty-four hours a day.

If only she could be so oblivious again, to feel such love without knowing it, mistaking it for laughter.

Often I wish this would all be over, Liesel, but then somehow you do something like walk down the basement steps with a snowman in your hands.

I have hated words and I have loved them, and I hope I have made them right.

I guess humans like to watch a little destruction. Sand castles, houses of cards, that's where they begin. Their great skills is their capacity to escalate.

No matter how many times she was told that she was loved, there was no recognition that the proof was in the abandonment.

It was the beginning of the greatest Christmas ever. Little food. No presents. But there was a snowman in their basement.

As always, one of her books was next to her.

If you can't imagine it, think clumsy silence. Think bits and pieces of floating despair. And drowning in a train.

True success is a silence inner process that can empower the mind, heart and soul through strong aspiration for great achievement.

...[S]ome of the opinions which people entertain should be respected, and others should not.

I've given up coffee, made diet changes.

It's no secret that I am not afraid to shine bright and be festive, and I like to encourage that in others.

Of course it is extremely difficult to like oneself in a culture which thinks you are a disease.

Life is a matter of dealing with other people, in little matters and cataclysmic ones, and that means a series of conversations.

When I was 10, I beat up the school bully. His arms were in casts. That's what gave me the courage.

I wanted to be a star, not a gallery mascot.

What is right, in the end, is not always what it seems to be, and some rules are better broken.

I also love a film by Ang Lee - "Lust, Caution."