“To the people who love you, you are beautiful already. This is not because theyre blind to your shortcomings but because they so clearly see your soul. Your shortcomings then dim by comparison. The...”

“Because I was more often happy for other people, I got to spend more time being happy. And as I saw more light in everybody else, I seemed to have more myself. (250)”

“Sometimes customizing is necessary because of an injury or the inability to do, for a short or long period, the kind of exercise you formerly did. When you're used to customizing for fun, doing it ...”

“A simple life is not seeing how little we can get by withthats povertybut how efficiently we can put first things first. . . . When youre clear about your purpose and your priorities, you can painl...”

“Sometimes youll hear, People dont change. This is true more often than it ought to be, but listen again: People dont change. It says dont, not cant. (316)”

“Our society on a whole is trained to see young women. There are proportionally far more of them on magazine covers, on TV, and in films than int the actual population. As a result, we have a citize...”

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

“If I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drownedif I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and t...”

“I'm an Earth ecstatic, and my creed is simple: All life is sacred, life loves life, and we are capable of improving our behavior toward one another. As basic as that is, for me it's also tonic and ...”

“But who can remember pain, once its over? All that remains of it is a shadow, not in the mind even, in the flesh. Pain marks you, but too deep to see. Out of sight, out of mind.”

“I know what you are learning to endure. There is nothing to be done. Make sure nothing is wasted. Take notes. Remember it all, every insult, every tear. Tattoo it on the inside of your mind. In lif...”

“My mind, I know, I can prove, hovers on hummingbird wings. It hovers and it churns. And when it's operating at full thrust, the churning does not stop. The machines do not rest, the systems rarely ...”

“When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago.”

“There is no future without a past, because what is to be cannot be imagined except as a form of repetition.”

“In the end, your past is not my past and your truth is not my truth and your solution - is not my solution.”