It takes a lot of spine and stomach to make yourself into something when no one gives you a foundation.

She surrounded herself with books at work and at home. Her living space was a testament to her first and abiding love with shelves jammed with books tables crowded with them. She saw them not only as knowledge entertainment comfort even sanity but as a kind of artful decoration.

If you love someone, when it's the most real, the most important thing in your life, it's not enough to coast. You need to dig in those footers, start building on that base. You want something to last, you put your back into it.

If you don't go after what you want, you'll never have it. If you don't ask, the answer is always no. If you don't step forward, you're always in the same place.

Every single book is a challenge.

I don't let myself believe in writer's block. I feel very strongly writing is habit as much as an art or a craft. And if you write crap, you're still writing.

Once you considered failure you were one step farther away from success.