When a girl is beautiful, she gets to pick - she never has to wait for someone to choose her.

And when you clear away the cobwebs of the description of every job in the world, at the bottom of that job is service. It's service. And I took that ethic and applied it to my writing craft.

The good things that happen to us were meant to happen, and the bad things that happen are lessons meant to teach us to be better.

Having a purpose is the little secret of the nonpretties. Something to do always beats something to look at.

If you look around to find meaning in everything that happens, you will end up disappointed. Sometimes there aren’t reasons behind the terrible things that go on. I ask myself, If I knew all the answers, would it help? I lie awake and wonder why I don’t have parents and wonder what will become of my brother and me. But when the morning comes, I realize that there’s nothing to be done about what has already happened. I can only get up and do my chores and push through the day and find the good in it.

Book clubs are the best thing that has happened to the world of publishing.

This is where men and women are different, we can put aside petty competition for relationships - they can't. It interferes.