“Courage will get you everywhere, so long as you believe in yourself and what you stand for...You don‘t know what your life will be like...the only thing I know for sure is that you alone are in control of your own destiny. No one else. You have the power to make your life whatever you want it to be, and in order to do that, you have to find the courage to stand up for yourself, even if you‘re standing alone.”

My favorite quote from Beautiful Ruins, “Stories are people. I‘m a story, you‘re a story...Our stories go in every direction, but sometimes, if we‘re lucky, our stories join into one, and for awhile, we‘re less alone.”

“...because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.”