I struggled for a long time to get anything published.

When you can write music that endures, bravo. Until then, keep quiet and study the work of those who can.

Hope is the crystal meth of emotions. It hooks you fast and kills you hard.

Every heart is made of stories.

For the first time, I saw what was in his heart, and I wondered if he might ever want to look deep enough to see mine.

And I knew in my bones that Emily Dickinson wouldn't have written even one poem if she'd had two howling babies, a husband bent on jamming another one into her, a house to run, a garden to tend, three cows to milk, twenty chickens to feed, and four hired hands to cook for. I knew then why they didn't marry. Emily and Jane and Louisa. I knew and it scared me. I also knew what being lonely was and I didn't want to be lonely my whole life. I didn't want to give up on my words. I didn't want to choose one over the other. Mark Twain didn't have to. Charles Dickens didn't.

But his words fall away. He looks confused. He looks flustered and sorry. Like you do when you run up to someone you think you know and take her arm and she turns around and you were wrong.