Hey, this is it—right now!—the time when you find out who you are and what you can do. And how will you ever know if you don't try new stuff?

She's alone, they kept telling themselves, and surely she danced in no one's arms, yet somehow that seemed to matter less and less. As the night went on, and clarinet and coyote call mingled beyond the lantern light, the magic of their own powder-blue jackets and orchids seemed to fade, and it came to them in small sensations that they were more alone than she was.

She taught me to revel. She taught me to wonder. She taught me to laugh. My sense of humor had always measured up to everyone else's; but timid introverted me, I showed it sparingly: I was a smiler. In her presence I threw back my head and laughed out loud for the first time in my life

Home is everything you can walk to.

They say talk is cheap. Maybe so. But kindness is even better—it's free! Free to give. Free to receive. Makes you wonder why there's not more of it, huh?

Tell me I didn't imagine it, Leo. Tell me that even though our bodies were in seperate states, our star selves shared an enchanted place. Tell me that right around noon today (eastern time) you had the strangest sensation: a tiny chill on your shoulder...a flutter in the heart...a shadow of strawberry-banana crossing your tongue...tell me you whispered my name.

Nobody told me how hard it was going to be to get published. I wrote four novels that nobody wanted, sent them out all over, collected hundreds and hundreds of rejection slips.