“God helps those who strut their stuff.”

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up.”

“You were not born on earth to please anyone; you have to live life to express yourself, not to impress someone. Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not, and never lose yourself in search of other people’s acceptance and approval.”

“What if life could be this way? Only the happy parts, none of the terrible, not even the mildly unpleasant. What if we could just cut out the bad and keep the good? This is what I want to do with Violet – give her only the good, keep away the bad, so that good is all we ever have around us.”

“Fear robs you of your freedom to make the right choice in life that can bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be. On the other side of fear, lies freedom. If you want to grow, you need to be brave and take risks. If you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not growing.”

“It doesn’t matter how many people you meet in your life; you just need the real ones who accept you for who you are and help you become who you should be.”

“Successful people have no fear of failure. But unsuccessful people do. Successful people have the resilience to face up to failure—learn the lessons and adapt from it.”

“What other people think and say about you is none of your business. The most destructive thing you would ever do is to believe someone else’s opinion of you. You have to stop letting other people’s opinions control you.”

“Count your blessings, not your problems. Count your own blessings, not someone else’s. Remember that jealousy is when you count someone else’s blessings instead of your own.”