Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic.

Alcohol has its own well-know defects as a medication for depression but no one has ever suggested - ask any doctor - that it is not the most effective anti-anxiety agent yet known.

I've had a lot of therapists, so I've had the opportunity to approach my fear in many different ways. I've faced it head on and sideways and tried to tiptoe up behind it.

The demons are not easily dispatched, instead attaching themselves to otherwise beautiful things, a favorite food or a love note left for you, to see how you react when they rear up.

Let this time in your life cut you open and drain all of the things that are holding you back. I’m going to help you forgive the things that you won’t let yourself forget.

You always were such a worrier. It was as if you thought your worrying was all that held the world together, and if you stopped for a split second the whole thing would just fly apart.

I had the chance to make every possible mistake and figure out a way to recover from it. Once you realize there is life after mistakes, you gain a self-confidence that never goes away.

Anxiety was born in the very same moment as mankind. And since we will never be able to master it, we will have to learn to live with it—just as we have learned to live with storms.

Standing naked on the beach with all of my secrets between my legs, I look out into the water and up deep into the stars. I beg the sparkling lanterns of light to cure me of myself…

Behind every flinch is a fear or an anxiety - sometimes rational, sometimes not. Without the fear, there is no flinch. But wiping out the fear isn't what's important - facing it is.

What if I turned out to be a great kisser, and suddenly, girls everywhere wanted to kiss me? Did I really want to risk losing my free time to watch people so I could kiss every girl in town?

I name you today, heart fears. I am small, but you are smaller. You will not stop me. You have a voice, fears, and I must listen, but then I will open my heart. I will love you right to death.

Guilt at least has a purpose; it tells us we’ve violated some ethical code. Ditto for remorse. Those feelings are educational; they manufacture wisdom. But regret—regret is useless.

Something, somewhere, knows what’s best for me and promises to keep sending me people and experiences to light my way as long as I live in gratitude and keep paying attention to the signs.

Mattie sat at the table, obsessing, orbiting around herself. She was sick of her worried, hostile mind. It would have killed her long before, she felt, if it hadn't needed the transportation.