I grew up in a dictatorship, where you couldn't talk about difficult situations - there was this culture of silence. We would run into a problem and have no one to talk to.

There is no end to what can be said about the world

Don't plan it all. Let life surprise you a little.

Everyone needs a strong sense of self. It is our base of operations for everything that we do in life.

It's always gratifying to hear from a passionate reader, and as a longtime educator, I'm especially pleased and heartened when that reader is a young student who is inspired to write me and let me know that my book has helped him or her find her way.

How we lie to ourselves when we've fallen in love with the wrong man.

Reading is a way to take in the difficult situations and understand them. The whole point of reading a book in class is to have discussion about what these situations are like.