Being a failure at living your own life as best as you can is better than being a success living the life somebody else says you should live.

Silence was not the absence of sound but was itself a sound that could be loud or soft, soothing or disturbing, complex or simple.

The young accept the extraordinary as normal because they do not compare their lives with those of others when everyone is like them.

...part of the mind's job was to cast doubt on what the heart knew to be true, and the heart, because it had no words, often lost the argument

But I want you around even when I don't need you. —Jeremy Richards

Books, and especially fiction, do not proceed from ideas. They are born from feelings

When I read students’ attempts at creative writing it is obvious immediately that most of them have not read much or widely. The aspiring writer must read everything he or she can to appreciate the myriad ways words are used and to what effect.