They are words that are easy enough to say and which fill vast empty spaces.

Don't give to anyone the power to put you down. Haters are losers pretending to be winners.

Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria. Wait a minute. "Once upon a time" is how all the best children's stories begin, and "prostitute" is a word for adults. How can I start a book with this apparent contradiction? But since, at every moment of our lives, we all have one foot in a fairy tale and the other in the abyss, let's keep that beginning.

Learning something means coming into contact with a world of which you know nothing. In order to learn, you must be humble.

We pretend to be strong because we are weak.

Believing that you can be sure of everything you've achieved.

Thy will be done, my Lord. Because you know the weakness in the heart of your children, and you assign each of them only the burden they can bear. May you understand my love–because it is the only thing I have that is really mine, the only thing that I will be able to take with me into the next life. Please allow it to be courageous and pure; please make it capable of surviving the snares of the world.