“I believe in people because I believe in God. I think God knew what God was doing when God made each of us.”

When folks decide they love any institution more than the individual souls inside them, they’re missing the mark.

I wrote in my first book that I was broken, and now it just makes me mad every time. This is why writing words in books is so precarious. This is why Jesus only wrote in the sand, right? I just – I hate that I wrote that.

We should live out our particular brand of faith, sure – but we should never force our brand of faith upon anyone else. All violence starts with the desire to change others and then never, ever ends.

The Internet is neither good nor bad. It’s neutral – it becomes for each of us exactly what we bring to it.

I think that in order to parent effectively, we are going to have to admit two things: We can’t keep our children safe. We can’t accept the fact that we can’t keep our children safe.

Sometimes when you love someone like a mother loves her child, that love can turn into fear. It happens to me all the time. I am so afraid that the world will not be kind to my children.

The closer you get to people who are different than you, the more you learn that we’re all same.

Making sensible family rules around cell phones and driving is a way to love yourself, your marriage, your children, and the world well.

I’ve never believed in or understood romantic love. Love at first sight was always a complete joke to me.

When we shrug and say we don’t care, it’s usually a lie. Every girl cares. We’ve just been taught not to expose ourselves by showing it. What the world needs now is girls and women who aren’t afraid to care – who are done saying, ‘Whatever.’

I don’t think that I’m broken at all. I no longer think that I’m a mess. I just think I’m a deeply feeling person in a messy world.

You do not have to agree with me to love me.

We can be shiny and perfect and admired, or we can be real and honest and vulnerable and loved. But we actually do have to choose.

I used to choose friends based on similarity in age and life stage, but I’ve learned that those were the wrong criteria. Trying to live life exclusively alongside others our own age is like attempting to climb Mt. Everest without a Sherpa. It’s a little dangerous.

Parenting is the most important thing to many of us, and so it’s also the place we’re most vulnerable. We’re all a little afraid we’re doing it wrong.

If no pain, then no love. If no darkness, no light. If no risk, then no reward. It’s all or nothing. In this damn world, it’s all or nothing.

Believe that you will succeed, and you will.

Believe you will be successful and you will.

We only see what we want to see; we only hear what we want to hear. Our belief system is just like a mirror that only shows us what we believe.

I’m not materialistic. I believe in presents from the heart, like a drawing that a child does.

If you believe in what you are doing, then let nothing hold you up in your work.

What I believe in my heart must make sense in my mind.

I believe that every American should have stable, dignified housing; health care; education – that the most very basic needs to sustain modern life should be guaranteed in a moral society.

Just because you’re a Believer, doesn’t mean your safe from the Hell-fire.