Enlightenment is scary. Sometimes things look better in the dark.

My main piece of advice would be dont worry about being published - just write a really good book, but also dont be afraid to write a bad book. Give yourself permission to fail, and dont be afraid.

For I have never wanted a lover, but I have always wanted to love, and to be loved.

Deep down? That sounds like settling to me. You shouldn't have to venture deep down in order to get to love.

When you live as I do, you cannot indulge in jealousy. If you do, it will rip you apart.

I think that if you were somehow able to measure the weight of human kindness, it would have weighed more on 9/11 than it ever had. On 9/11, all the hatred and murder could not compare with the weight of love, of bravery, of caring. I have to believe that.

It is its own form of conversation -- you can learn a lot about people from the stories they tell, but you can also know them from the way they sing along, whether they like the windows up or down, if they live by the map or by the world, if they feel the pull of the ocean.