I've given lots of people chances. But there's only so much faith you can have in people.

You can't just plan a moment when things get back on track, just as you can't plan the moment you lose your way in the first place. But standing there alone on the landing, I thought of Grandma Halley and how she'd held me close against her lap as we watched the sky together. I'd always thought I couldn't remember, but suddenly in that moment, I closed my eyes and saw the comet, finally, brilliant and impossible, stretching above me across the sky.

…You don’t want the best of times to be just one thing, forever. You have to have a lot of bests of times, each one topping the last. You know?

Oh darling, don't be bitter. It's the first instinct of the weak.

I think I'm too lazy a writer to do something like historical fiction. You have to do so much research. I just write what I know.

Total commitment. You know, the idea of discovering something that, for all intents and purposes, goes against your abilities, and yet still deciding to do it anyway. That takes guts, you know?

Obviously it won't all run smoothly. But it's important to awknowledge that while we may make mistakes, in the long run, we may also learn fromt them.