By investing others with the power to dictate who you are, you rob yourself of an opportunity to truly grow. You shortchange yourself by devaluing the experiences and knowledge you've banked, all those things that have been making you, you.

Don't be a fool, there is no such thing as just a girl.

Anthony Doerr again takes language beyond mortal limits.

Write to exhaustion so that you can no longer manage to avoid writing the truth.

I focus best and am most productive when I’m working in a friend’s empty apartment. It’s hard for me to work at home. Too easy to procrastinate online, too easy to be distracted by the state of perpetual domestic chaos that rules my home.

The stories in Dawn Raffel's astonishing Further Adventures in the Restless Universe as as sharp and bright as stars.

By investing others with the power to dictate who you are, you rob yourself of an opportunity to truly grow.