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Being tender and loving is beautiful. As as woman, I feel continually shhh'ed. Too sensitive. Too mushy. To wishy washy. Don't let someone steal your tenderness. Don't allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your vulnerable beating heart. Nothing is more powerful that allowing yourself to be fully affected by things. Whether it's a song, a stranger, a mountain, a rain drop, a tea kettle, an article, a sentence, a footstep, feel it all - look around you. All of this is for you. Take it and have gratitude. Give it and feel love.

No matter how frightened and discouraged I may become about the future, I look forward to it. In spite of everything I see all around me every day, I have a shaky assurance that everything will turn out fine; and I don’t think I’m the only one. Why else would the phrase "Everything is alright" ease a troubled place in so many of us? We just don’t know, we never know, yet we have so much faith. We hold our hands over our hurts and lean forward. It is how we keep on, this kind of hope.

You should always speak your mind, and be bold, and be obnoxious, and do whatever you want, and don't let anybody tell you to stop it.

Life is short, despite of your plans. So tell the girls they're pretty while you can, cause one day they're gone, and all you got left are some empty bottles and an old country song; it plays on and on.

For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.

Some people bring out the worst in you, others bring out the best, and then there are those remarkably rare, addictive ones who just bring out the most. Of everything. They make you feel so alive that you’d follow them straight into hell, just to keep getting your fix.

When I think about you, I think about seventeen. I think about my old Jeep, I think about the stars in the sky. Funny how a melody sounds like a memory, like a soundtrack to a July Saturday night.. Springsteen.

I think we spend too much time wondering why we're not good enough. We waste too much time putting ourselves down, that we don't ever stop to see that we are good enough. We spend too much time with our heads down and hearts closed, and never get a chance to look up from the ground and see that the sun is shining and tomorrow is another day.

You know what I think we are most afraid of? Not knowing. Not knowing whether it's all really worth it. Not knowing if you should give up or keep fighting. Not knowing why you do things you do; not knowing the purpose. It's like when you're little and you touch the stove and get burned, because you didn't really know that it was hot. Not knowing has always hurt us, from the very beginning.

Love is a funny thing. You expect it to be easy. You expect it to be a world of roses and laughs and perfect moments that you find only in movies. You expect him to always say the right thing and always know exactly how you feel or how to react to it. You expect him to calm you down when you're yelling or to chase you when you run away. You expect so much that you feel entirely and utterly defeated when something doesn't exactly match up with all your plans. But that's the thing, love isn't a plan. It doesn't have a certain beginning and it certainly has no end or a visible finish line to those deeply in it. Love happens and it's so incredibly messy.

Sometimes, the truth isn't good enough. Sometimes people deserve more. Sometimes they deserve to have their faith rewarded.

I never understood the concept of addiction, how people could long for cigarettes, or alcohol, so badly that it hurt. Until I met you. Now I know how it feels to be 100% reliant on some kind of substance that will never satisfy me.

And I learned what is obvious to a child. That life is simply a collection of little lives, each lived one day at a time. That each day should be spent finding beauty in flowers and poetry and talking to animals. That a day spent with dreaming and sunsets and refreshing breezes cannot be bettered. But most of all, I learned that life is about sitting on benches next to ancient creeks with my hand on her knee and sometimes, on good days, for falling in love.