Stop saying no offense,” I said, “when you say offensive things. It’s not a free pass.

When you start reading nonfiction books about piracy, you realize that it's actually just a history of desperate people.

The way sadness works is one of the strange riddles of the world. If you are stricken with a great sadness, you may feel as if you have been set aflame, not only because of the enormous pain, but also because your sadness may spread over your life, like smoke from an enormous fire.

How can someone so wonderful do something so terrible?

There are two kinds of fears: rational and irrational- or in simpler terms, fears that make sense and fears that don't.

Sometimes, just saying that you hate something, and having someone agree with you, can make you feel better about a terrible situation.

It is always tedious when someone tells you that if you don't stop crying, they will give you something to cry about, because if you are crying then you already have something to cry about, and so there is no reason for them to give you anything additional to cry about, thank you very much.