“I’ve learned one important lesson in my life, and I’m going to share it with you.”

It doesn’t. What matters is what you make. Whether it’s a cake for bingo night or a costume for a saint or a wall of water-whatever you pour into this life is what makes you rich.

If there is one thing I hope my books do always and forever, its that they honor working people.

Same is true of liking a boy. If you cut off the thoughts, if you stop pinning, you’re free to find a boy who is attainable.

I even love the smell of books.

This should tell you everything you need to know about guys.

But I learned that art can be found in all of life, even in pain.

So for them 15 years is a blink of an eye. I am nothing but grateful.

I have candles going, and small objects that remind me of what I am working on, or bring me into the world of the character.

When I see it lumbering down the mountain road like a tank . . . I flag it down like an old friend. I’ve waited on this corner every Friday since I can remember.

I am no trouble at all. You could press me into dough and make sugar cookies out of me, I’ve been so sweet.

Regardless of whether they loved us back or treated us fairly or understood our shortcomings.

To fail and succeed and flourish and fly.

I adored the Iranian sisters, Marjan, Bahar and Layla, who are looking to build a life, start a business and find love in a place so far from home.

People have often told me that one of their strongest childhood memories is the scent of their grandmother’s house.

The wedding vows are a license to be a complete jerk.

I don’t even like the sound of the dryer going – I like the quiet.

The media no longer hesitate to whip up lurid anxieties in order to increase sales, in the process undermining social confidence and multiplying fears.

Those who are certain of the outcome can afford to wait, and wait without anxiety.

I don’t eat meat because meat brings out negative qualities such as fear, anger, anxiety, aggressiveness, etc. Vegetables peacefully offer themselves to the earth when ripe, thus allowing a sublime and peaceful thought-consciousness.

Much of our anxiety and stress comes when we’re focused on fear and disconnected from the voice of our inner guide.

The emotions in all true anxiety dreams are next to unbearable.

Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.

People are less self-conscious in the intimacy of family life and during the anxiety of a great sorrow. The dazzling varnish of an extreme politeness is then less in evidence, and the true qualities of the heart regain their proper proportions.

Every writer knows that unless you were born gifted with either supreme confidence or outsize ego, handing in your work holds, in some cases, admitted terror. If that’s too strong, at least fairly high anxiety.