“It is difficult to describe the peace that comes with giving yourself permission to know what you know. To have hard, complicated realities staring at you and be able to raise your head and look back at them with a steady gaze, scared maybe, grieved perhaps, but straight on and unwavering”

“We humans are prone to err, and to err systematically, outrageously, and with utter confidence. We are also prone to hold our mistaken notions dear, protecting and nourishing them like our own children. We defend them at great cost. We surround ourselves with safe people, people who will appreciate our cherished views. We avoid those who suggest that our exalted ideas, our little emperors, have no clothes.”

“The human tendency toward confirmatory thinking - all of us are bias to seek information that fits what we already believe.”

“Don’t write what you know—what you know may bore you, and thus bore your readers. Write about what interests you—and interests you deeply—and your readers will catch fire at your words.”

“Love is an uphill climb, but once you know yourself and like yourself just as you are, it's all downhill from there.”

“Life is too short to suffer anybody's meanness, which is what you can learn eating shrimp with store-bought coleslaw, if you look it straight in the face.”

“Figuring out what you want comes from failing, and then trying again. It comes from questioning everything, falling in love, fighting the power, living without limits. It doesn't come from getting straight A’s, playing by the rules, and listening obediently.”