“Be Hard On a Woman Only When Making Love to Her”

“There Are No Believers in This World:There Are Only the Make Believers and the Non-Believers.”

“Teenage girls today need strong, positive role models that can show them how to be independent thinkers and confident decision-makers. Dana is proud and self-confident, which is good, but she does not always make wise decisions. Rather than make her a super woman, I balanced her with difficult situations that could have been handled better. Her strength, however, shines through. This way, a young woman can read the book, discuss Dana's actions, and reflect on the decision-making in her own life.”

“It has struck me that people seldom listen to the meaning of underlying words.There are only a few people who recognize the silence beyond the scream,the gentle weeping that hides beyond tough statements.They hear only the words,the sentences,when there is so much more to take in.People who are too self-absorbed to notice,really see or fathom others.Often,they don't even know themselves.”

“Seeing with your heart, speaking from your heart, wearing your heart on your sleeve, and sacrificing for your heart will transform you into an extravagant lover. Hard work? Absolutely. But when you're an old woman at the end of your life and you evaluate your time on earth, I believe that there is only one question- beyond that of your salvation- that will really matter: Did I love well?”

“What I ate for breakfast on school mornings was one buttered roll--a soft roll, not a hard roll--and one cup of cocoa; any attempt to alter this menu I regarded as a plot to poison me.”

“Wonderful art can spring from misery,I'm the last person to deny that.I'd go even further:the best works of art of all time are probably stemmed from the deep human sorrow or hellish frustration,the death of a loved one or a divorce and yes:jealousy.Heartache and impotence as the man-spring for making the unverifiable verifiable and for giving it face.How romantic,beautiful and especially useful pain and misery can be.”