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.

The women's movement burst forth when I was fifteen. That was when I began to believe that life might semi-work out after all. The cavalry had arrived. Women were starting to say that you got to tell the truth now, that you had to tell the truth if you were going to heal and have an authentic life.

Evangelical Christians and I can sit down and talk one on one about how much we love Jesus, and yet I'm not carried in Christian bookstores.

Frequently, as so many poets and psalmists and songwriters have said, the invisible shift happens through the broken places.

Good writing is about telling the truth.

Perfectionism means that you try not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived.

You just have to keep getting out of your own way so that whatever it is that wants to be written can use you to write it.