It was like everyone suddenly knew what mattered. Money didn't matter. Politics didn't matter. Tabloid news didn't matter. No-compassion mattered. Calm mattered. Respect mattered. Did it really take something of this magnitude to make us realize this?

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

It would be too easy to say that I feel invisible. Instead, I feel painfully visible, and entirely ignored.

Yes, we could talk to you for days on end about all the bad first dates. Those are stories. Funny stories. Awkward stories. Stories we love to share, because by sharing them, we get something out of the hour or two we wasted on the wrong person. But that's all bad first dates are: short stories. Good first dates are more than short stories. They are first chapters. On a good first date, everything is springtime. And when a good first date becomes a relationship, the springtime lingers. Even after it's over, there can be springtime.

It's hard to answer a question you haven't been asked. It's hard to show you tried unless you end up succeeding.

Teens wanted things that were real, that they connected with, it doesn't have to reflect reality directly. They love 'The Hunger Games' not because it's real in that it happens, but the emotions there are real, and it's very relatable.

I just needed to realize that style was like personality - it didn't always have to be consistent; it just had to be something you lived with.