“You’re not going to throw this away, are you?” she says, and she’ll be talking about the grains of rice in the bottom of the salt shaker. “No, Mrs. Peacock, by all means, you take them. They’ll come in handy when your son gets out of prison and marries your niece.”

“Take the years when you’re young – say, between the ages of fifteen and thirty-five, before you have a mortgage or kids or anything else that needs to be fed – and go balls out on intuition and follow your dreams. Dreams won’t always take you on a straight path to destiny, but they’re usually related to what your soul wants for you. They’ll force you to ask yourself the hard questions, they’ll kick your ass, and most importantly, they’ll turn you on.”

“Why is it that married people always say "Come in" when everything they do says "Get out"? They talk about their miseries and then ask you why you're unmarried.”

“People will always try to stealyour power. When you do well, they’ll say it’s only because you’re rich and your parents are big shots. People who care about you will try to stealyour power, too, but they’ll go about it differently. When you fail at something, they’ll try to make you feel better by saying that nobody’s good ateverything, and you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. They might tell you not to feel bad about screwing up a math test because math’s hard for girls.Or they’ll say you shouldn’t worry so much about injustice in the world because you’re only one person. And even though they mean well, they’ll bemaking you less than what you can be.”

“I remember Robyn saying once ‘Talking about yourself can be selfish or generous’. When I asked what she meant, she said: ‘If you never talk about yourself, about your problems and stuff, that’s selfish, because you’re not giving your friends a chance to help you. And if you talk about yourself all the time, you’re selfish and boring.”

“They’re never going to change. You gotta get that into your head. What they did up there? They’ll keep doing that forever. You know why? Because they’re withholders. That’s what power is all about. Not giving people what they want. So you know what that means? It means you’ve got to stop wanting. Stop wanting them to love you, or be proud of you, or whatever it is you’re after. ’Cause you’re not gonna get it.”