Everybody was so kind. Strong, too. In the darkest days, the Lord puts the best people into your life." "Quick, give me a throw pillow and some thread because that needs to be an Encouragement.

You don't remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened.

If I had a nervous breakdown every time something awful happened in the world, I'd be crazier than a shithouse rat.

The Degree to which I am blessed staggers me... the degree to which I take that for granted shames me. -Streetwalking with Jesus

I really think that reading is just as important as writing when you're trying to be a writer because it's the only apprenticeship we have, it's the only way of learning how to write a story.

The challenge is the same whether or not I'm collaborating: to empathize with your reader and to tell a story that will matter to him or her. But the mechanics of going about that challenge change when you're collaborating, because you have someone to help refine your thinking and expand your vision of what might happen.

The nature of the labyrinth, I scribbled into my spiral notebook, and the way out of it. This teacher rocked. I hated discussion classes. I hated talking, and I hated listening to everyone else stumble on their words and try to phrase things in the vaguest possible way so they wouldn't sound dumb, and I hated how it was all just a game of trying to figure out what the teacher wanted to hear and then saying it. I'm in class, so teach me.