“The importance of reading, for me, is that it allows you to dream.Reading not only educates, but is relaxing and allows you to feed your imagination - creating beautiful pictures from carefully chosen words.”

“I want to grab your hand, allow you to pull me through, to take us wherever you want to go, fill my calendar with your smile and laugh the way we used to”

“It's like when you read a book and you know that the words are important, but the images blossoming in your imagination are even more important because it's your mind that allows the words to come to life.”

“You can't dissect love, you can't explain it, because once you do you prevent yourself from being able to experience it. You pull yourself out of the enjoyment of it, the excitement of it, the meaning, no...the importance of it.”

“Don’t pray that God would teach you how to love like He loves; pray that He would fill you with Himself and that He would love in and through you. Don’t pray that He would teach you to have joy; pray that the living God full of joy would enter into you. Don’t pray that He would teach you how to be peaceful; ask for the God of peace, the Prince of peace to infill you. Because if you try to imitate in your own strength, you will be a miserable replica. But if you allow the impartation of Jesus Christ to overtake you, suddenly it all works because it is Him imitating Himself, and He is very good at being God.”

“Outside of note passing and the occasional tight-lipped kiss after school events, "going together" in seventh grade was pretty meaningless. You couldn't drive, had nowhere to go, and either weren't allowed or couldn't afford to do anything. I was kind of like being an old married couple, except you could control you bowels and stay awake past 8 p.m.”

“And workers who needed to go to the bathroom weren't allowed to take a break. They were forced to pee right on the slaughterhouse floor, near meat that people would soon be eating.”