I taught workshops at universities. I wrote for magazines. This took time and insane amounts of juggling, but it's how I earned a living.

Don't worry. Don't apologize. Don't cower behind the defeated security of there is no 'room for someone like me'. There isn't room for any one of us. It's up to you to make a place for yourself in the world. So get to work.

I'd walk and think about my entire life. I'd find my strength again, far from everything that had made my life ridiculous.

I hope when people ask what you're going to do with your English degree and/or creative writing degree you'll say: Continue my bookish examination of the contradictions and complexities of human motivation and desire; or maybe just: Carry it with me, as I do everything that matters. And then smile very serenely until they say, Oh.

Healing is a small and ordinary and very burnt thing. And it's one thing and one thing only: it's doing what you have to do.

The people who don’t give up are the people who find a way to believe in abundance rather than scarcity.

When you meet a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant who later kisses you while explaining that this kiss doesn’t “mean anything” because, much as he likes you, he is not interested in having a relationship with you or anyone right now, just laugh and kiss him back. Your daughter will have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes.