“I have to face the fear. I have to take control of the situation and find a way to make it less frightening.”

You don’t believe things because they make your life better, you believe them because they’re true.

I know exactly how we fit together, his arm around my waist, my hands on his chest, the pressure of his lips on mine. We have each other memorized.

Mom used to say that politeness is deception in pretty packaging

It will be difficult to break the habits of thinking Abnegation instilled in me, like tugging a single thread from a complex work of embroidery. But I will find new habits, new thoughts, new rules. I will become something else.

It’s strange how a word, a phrase, a sentence, can feel like a blow to the head.

I feel the monster of grief again, writhing in the empty space where my heart and stomach used to be.

If I let a little of the emotion out, all of it will come out, and it will never end.

Sorry, am I being rude?” she asks. “I’m used to saying whatever is on my mind.

Dauntless: being brave in the midst of fear.

All I can do is stand still- I feel like if I just stand still, I can stop it from being true, I can pretend that everything is all right.

Killing you is not the worst thing they can do to you,” I say. “Controlling you is.

But when a book comes out, it’s just hundreds of opinions and you have to learn to separate out the ones you want to listen to or figure out many you want to listen to.

My mother knit scarves for the neighborhood kids. My father helped Caleb with his homework. There was a fire in the fireplace and peace in my heart, as I was doing exactly what I was supposed to be doing, and everything was quiet.

We believe in shouting for those who can only whisper, in defending those who cannot defend themselves.

There are so many ways to be brave in this world.

I feel like myself, strong and weak at once – allowed, at least for a little while, to be both.

It’s frightening when things you love appear suddenly changed from what you have always known.

I find George Bush and Dick Cheney frightening, Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft frightening.

Sometimes hope could be the most frightening thing in the world.

The solitude of writing is also quite frightening. It’s quite close to madness, one just disappears for a day and loses touch.

A lot of black guys always ask me, ‘Did Larry Bird really play that good?’ I said, ‘Larry Bird is so good it’s frightening.’

To others he taught non-duality, that some find profoundly frightening.

It’s frightening how much things change in seventy-one years.

Frightening for many artists is promoting themselves.