“My mamma says I shouldn't go on the other side".... My mama says the same thing. But she never said nothing about sitting on it”

“Mama says it's okay to be on the quiet side—if quiet means you're listening, watching, taking it all in.”

“Mama was always saying I was a brain snob, that I didn't like people who didn't think. I didn't know if that was snobby. Who wanted to walk around explaining everything to people all the time?”

“That's what makes best friends. It's not whether or not you live on the same block or go to the same school, but how you feel about each other in your hearts.”

“I think only once in your life do you find someone that you say, "Hey, this is the person I want to spend the rest of my time on this earth with." And if you miss it, or walk away from it, or even maybe, blink - it's gone.”

“People are going to judge you all the time no matter what you do...Don't worry about other people. Worry about you.”

“You're writing, you're coasting, and you're thinking, 'This is the best thing I've ever written, and it's coming so easily, and these characters are so great.' You put it aside for whatever reason, and you open it up a week later and the characters have turned to cardboard and the book has completely fallen apart," she says. "That's the moment of truth for every writer: Can I go on from here and make this book into something? I think it separates the writers from the nonwriters. And I think it's the reason a lot of people have that unfinished manuscript around the house, that albatross.”