Because when an artist has to assert that her intended audience is all humans rather than those who happen to be of her particular gender or race, what she’s actually having to assert is the breadth and depth of her own humanity.

Of course you want someone special to love you. A majority of the people who write to me inquire about how they can get the same thing... Unique as every letter is, the point each writer reaches is the same: I want love and I'm afraid I'll never get it. It's hard to answer those letters because I'm an advice columnist, not a fortune-teller. I have words instead of a crystal ball. I can't say when you'll get love or how you'll find it or even promise that you will. I can only say you are worthy of it and that it's never too much to ask for it.

One thing any backpacker will tell you is that it's tedious and monotonous. You're bored sometimes, so you really have to make the fun in your head.

How wild it was, to let it be.

But the reality is we often become our kindest, most ethical selves only by seeing what it feels like to be a selfish jackass first.

Be about ten times more magnanimous than you believe yourself capable of. Your life will be a hundred times better for it.

I’m a free spirit who never had the balls to be free.