“Giving to other people makes me feel alive. Not my car or my house. Not what I look like in the mirror. When I give my time, when I can make someone smile after they were feeling sad...”

“I love when people quote me. It makes me feel that my words have meaning. People give words power. When they speak out for things they feel, we all become alive.”

“When he smiles at me, I feel like I'm sitting under a heat lamp. I live for the times when his fingers brush my leg at lunch, or when we pass in the hallways and he raises his eyebrows at me, like we have a secret. I should feel bad--and I do, most of the time--but how can I stop thinking about him when seeing his face makes me feel so alive?”

“When all by myself, I can think of all kinds of clever remarks, quick comebacks to what no one said, and flashes of witty sociability with nobody. But all of this vanishes when I face someone in the flesh: I lose my intelligence, I can no longer speak, and after half an hour I just feel tired. Talking to people makes me feel like sleeping. Only my ghostly and imaginary friends, only the conversations I have in my dreams, are genuinely real and substantial.”

“The best thing about my writing is that it makes me feel alive again. If I am going to be obsessed with self, at least self can give back a little.”

“I feel like I’m holding my breath all the time, never knowing when my lungs will just give up. The air we’re supposed to breathe is up above – I can feel it.”