Write the story that you were always afraid to tell. I swear to you that there is magic in it, and if you show yourself naked for me, I'll be naked for you. It will be our covenant.

He never said "Don't tell your mama." He never had to say it. I did not know how to tell anyone what I felt, what scared me and shamed me... (109)

What's the best thing you can do for your writing? Construct a boring life.

And while it is true that I got the best woman in the world, I don't think love saves you.

Everything that comes to us is a blessing or a test. That’s all you need to know in this life…just the certainty that God’s got His eye on you, that He knows what you are made of, what you need to grow on. Why,questioning’s a sin, it’s pointless. He will show you your path in His own good time. And long as I remember that, I’m fine.

Teenagers are free verse walking around on two legs.

I did things I did not understand for reasons I could not begin to explain just to be in motion, to be trying to do something, change something in a world I wanted desperately to make over but could not imagine for myself.