Writing a novel is a lot like reading one.
You don’t have to be perfect to be awesome.
People are always beautiful when you love them.
In fiction, you can be as true as you want. Real life is a different story.
It’s more important to be interesting, to be vivid, and to be adventurous than to sit pretty for pictures.
Sometimes there is no way to hold your life together. Sometimes things just have to fall apart.
The eyes see everything through the heart.
It’s always better to have what you have than to get what you wanted.
Beauty comes from tenderness.
It’s vital to learn how to make the best of things.
Success is doing the right thing for who you are.
If you feel lucky, then you are.
And despite everything I know now, I still believe, as I did when I was little, that there is an entire universe of things that my mother knows that I don’t. I still believe that nothing truly bad can ever happen if my mother is around. I know it’s not true. But still. It is true.
I like to write about people who are real and likeable. I like to write about people who tell their stories in that close and intimate voice we use with best friends. I love the closeness and honesty and vulnerability that come from characters who can talk that way.
What matters most is how you respond to your heartbreaks and your disappointments and your fears. What matters most is who you become in response to them.
There is no question that the objects that surround us impact our experience of the world.
The human condition is imperfection. And that’s how it’s supposed to be.
You are writing the story of your only life every single minute of every day.
Nothing that doesn’t push you past your limits can change your life. It’s true of work, it’s true of parenting, and it’s true – a hundred times over – of love.
Something good was happening. My life was rising from the ashes, and the sight of it left me feeling something like hopeful.