That is your legacy on this Earth when you leave this Earth: how many hearts you touched.

You have to separate yourself from your parents. You do. In order to find yourself.

The house I grew up in had large plate-glass windows, which birds frequently crashed into headfirst. My father helped me assemble a bird hospital, consisting of a few shoe boxes, some old rags, and tiny dishes for water and food.

I'm not the angry, rebellious child that I was. You can remain a child for a long time. I certainly did. I was a slow learner.

People love the way they're capable of loving-but that's not always how you want them to love or how you think they should love.

[On her father, Ronald Reagan:] How do you argue with someone who states that the people who are sleeping on the grates of the streets of America 'are homeless by choice'?

I knew people were independently publishing, and I buy books on Amazon. I began seriously considering it when Amanda Hocking was in the news about her self-publishing success.