Or you might shout at the top of your lungs or whisper into your sleeve, "I hate you, God." That is a prayer too, because it is real, it is truth, and maybe it is the first sincere thought you've had in months.

If you are hoping to find your self-worth and fulfillment in other peoples' opinion of your writing, you will never find it.

A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way. It's a lie if you make something up. But you make it up in the name of truth, and then you give your heart to expressing it clearly.

I write everything as a wake-up call to myself and others, to anyone who may have gotten tired of hitting the snooze button.

The reason 'help' is such a great prayer is that God is the gift of desperation. When you're in despair, you're teachable.

Being on a book tour is like being on the seesaw when you're a little kid. The excitement is in having someone to play with, and in rising up in the air, but then you're at the mercy of those holding you down, and if it's your older brother, or Paul Wolfowitz, they leap up, so that you crash down and get hurt.

So a moral position is not a message. A moral position is a passionate caring inside you.