Cutting people out of your life is easy, keeping them in is hard.

On the streets of the city They have taken my Who-I-Am As well as my What-I-Was And now I am desperate for them both Again

The best time to cry is at night, when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and screaming for help.

With my writing, what I want to do is humanize the young people I write about.

It is this language of values which I hope to bring to my books. . . . I want to bring values to those who have not been valued, and I want to etch those values in terms of the ideal. Young people need ideals which identify them, and their lives, as central . . . guideposts which tell them what they can be, should be, and indeed are.

But in the end, we learn we can forgive most people. The cushion of mortality makes their wrongdoing seem less dark, and whatever roads they traveled seem less foolhardy.

That's what's wrong with women. They want you to wait for them until they get ready and then they don't even tell you how they feel.