But as he grew older, he learned that a word was a powerful thing. An insult didn't have to be shouted to bleed; a vow didn't have to be whispered to make you believe. Hold a thought in your head, and that was enough to change the actions of anyone and anything that crossed your path.

And that was the greatest heartbreak of all- no matter how spectacular we want our children to be, no matter how perfect we pretend they are, they are bound to disappoint. As it turns out, kids are more like us than we think: damaged, through and through.

Writing is grunt work - you need to have self-motivation, perseverance, and faith... talent is the smallest part of it.

You can't pay a landlord in dogma.

The real power of a wolf isn't in its fearsome jaws, which can clench with fifteen hundred pounds of pressure per square inch. The real power of a wolf is having that strength, and knowing when not to use it.

A lot of the moms of autistic kids I met are so consumed with being their child's advocate that there's no room for anything else - least of all themselves. It's why so many marriages end in divorce, when a child is diagnosed on the spectrum.

What if love wasn't the act of finding what you were missing but the give-and-take that made you both match?