You don't feel like smiling? Then what? Force yourself to smile. Act as if you were already happy, and that will tend to make you happy.

I would never tell myself, you have to write 20 pages today or something. But I do try to show up. Read what I wrote, fix things.

When you mention to people growing up in Cleveland they bring up the river catching on fire, or LeBron James leaving, they have these references, but no one imagines ending up there.

What made something precious? Losing it and finding it.

They never discussed it, but both came to understand it as a promise: he would always make sure there was a place for her. She would always be able to say, Someone is coming. I am not alone.

I am in a mixed race marriage myself, and I have a mixed race son....The racial perception interest is probably always going to be there to some extent.

I think this is something that is naturally built in in people, a need for attention and a need to be special and we are always trying to find a balance.