“Okay, let's put this another way―if what you're about to say wouldn't look good permanently engraved on your tombstone, bite your tongue.”

“It's none of your concern what others say or think about you. Your happiness is your own responsibility.”

“If you'd just learn to do as I say from the beginning, I wouldn't have to follow up your errors with reproving smirks and repeated I-told-you-sos.”

“You were born and with you endless possibilities, very few ever to be realized.  It's okay.  Life was never about what you could do, but what you would do. ”

“Never give up. It's like breathing—once you quit, your flame dies letting total darkness extinguish every last gasp of hope. You can't do that. You must continue taking in even the shallowest of breaths, continue putting forth even the smallest of efforts to sustain your dreams. Don't ever, ever, ever give up.”

“No matter what you write, no matter how meticulous and painstaking the creation process, someone is going to laugh, scorn, and dissect your work with criticism while another quietly falls in love with it.”

“Real? Real depends upon your perspective, Annabelle. People never see life exactly the same way. The world is what you think it is.”