I wrote to find beauty and purpose, to know that love is possible and lasting and real, to see day lilies and swimming pools, loyalty and devotion, even though my eyes were closed, and all that surrounded me was a darkened room. I wrote because that was who I was at the core, and if I was too damaged to walk around the block, I was lucky all the same. Once I got to my desk, once I started writing, I still believed anything was possible.

Some things you cannot wish away or think away. They become part of you when you remember them.

When all is said and done, the weather and love are the two elements about which one can never be sure.

Young people believe that regret is something you will never feel if you simply do as you please, but sometimes it is a matter of degree.

Still anyone who trusts a serpent deserves its bite. The wise see a creature for what it is, not what it says it may be.

Love was like that, like a dream you didn't quite understand, one in which you didn't necessarily know what you were looking at until it was right in front of you.

...but now the worst crime was pretending to be something you were not.