There is nothing as sweet as a comeback, when you are down and out, about to lose, and out of time.

My best teachers were mess, failure, death, mistakes, and the people I hated, including myself.

I kept asking God for help, and after a while I realized something -- that Josh was not enjoying this either. He was just trying to take care of himself, and I made the radical decision to let him off the hook.

Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.

Becoming a writer is about becoming conscious. When you're conscious and writing from a place of insight and simplicity and real caring about the truth, you have the ability to throw the lights on for your reader. He or she will recognize his or her life and truth in what you say, in the pictures you have painted, and this decreases the terrible sense of isolation that we have all had too much of.

Learning to love back is the hardest part of being alive.

Everyone is flailing through this life without an owner's manual, with whatever modicum of grace and good humor we can manage.