You walk around with a negative attitude and you're just naturally going to bring trouble and hard times down on yourself.

Write from the heart, what has meaning to you personally; have the patience and discipline to sit down and do it every day whether you're feeling inspired or not; never be afraid to take chances, in fact, make sure you take chances. As soon as you become complacent, you become boring ... . Read as much as possible, not simply in the genre, or what you think you're interested in, but other things as well.

It is important to know what a person was. But it's more important to know what they are now.

I'm not as trusting as people think I am. Sure, I see the best in people, but that doesn't mean it's really there.

Sculptors, poets, painters, musicians-they're the traditional purveyors of Beauty. But it can as easily be created by a gardener, a farmer, a plumber, a careworker.

Don't start brooding about that, too," she says. "Everybody's got a piece of stranger inside them. It's what lets us surprise ourselves and keeps things interesting." -Lupita

Let it go on record that any confusion arose simply because we lacked certain commonalities of reference.