You have to say I am forgiven again and again until it becomes the story you believe about yourself.

The most important thing for aspiring writers is for them to give themselves permission to be brave on the page, to write in the presence of fear, to go to those places that you think you can’t write - really that’s exactly what you need to write.

He hadn't loved me well in the end, but he'd loved me well when it mattered.

If someone is being unkind or petty or jealous or distant or weird, you don't have to take it in. You don't have to turn it into a big psychodrama about your worth. That behavior so often is not even about you. Don't own other people's crap.

I receive a lot of letters like yours. Most go on in length, describing all sorts of maddening situations and communications in bewildered detail, but in each there is the same question at its core: Can I convince the person about whom I am crazy to be crazy about me? The short answer is no. The long answer is no.

If you want to read anything nasty about me, just go to the backpacker websites. There's this kind of elitist branch where they really believe that I had no business going backpacking.

Your life will be a great and continuous unfolding