With fiction, it could be about anything. It just has to be good writing, like Maria Semple's "Where'd You Go, Bernadette," which I read recently. I want to forget I have a book in my hand.

I love music and listen to music all the time, but I didn't realize how much my body needed music. I needed it more than sex.

Run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal.

So much of what I've learned, so much of what's good in my life, was learned because something bad happened, or from making the wrong decision. Through bad decisions I learned how to find the ways to make the right ones.

Fear begets fear. Power begets power. I willed myself to beget power. And it wasn't long before I actually wasn't afraid.

Of all the things I’d been skeptical about, I didn’t feel skeptical about this: the wilderness had a clarity that included me.

I remember being absolutely rocked to my core by how profoundly I could love another human being.