Morals aren't just for when it's easy, Anita. They aren't morals if you throw them aside every time it's convenient.

Walking your path doesn't mean you don't hurt, it means the pain is worth the progress. Sometimes you have to break something down in order to remake it, and that includes yourself, or it did for me. There were moments when I wept for an easier road, but in the end I would not trade my path for anyone else's. It is mine and the traveling of it has made me who I am, and continues to shape and remold me into the best, happiest, most productive, most playful me, I've ever been.

Never criticize, unless you can do a better job.

If you're open to it, New Orleans will teach you about yourself, but if you want to hide from who you really are, the city will help you do that, too.

Never throw stones if you think they're going to come back and hit you.

He was twenty. I remembered twenty. I'd known everything at twenty. It took me another year to realize I knew nothing. I was still hoping to learn something before I hit thirty, but I wasn't holding my breath.

Most hatred is based on fear, one way or another.