Jealousy is such a direct attack on whatever measure of confidence you’ve been able to muster. But if you continue to write, you are probably going to have to deal with it, because some wonderful, dazzling successes are going to happen for some of the most awful, angry, undeserving writers you know-people who are, in other words, not you.

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

Some people have a thick skin and you don’t. Your heart is really open and that is going to cause pain, but that is an appropriate response to this world. The cost is high, but the blessing of being compassionate is beyond your wildest dreams.

There is something so tender about this to me, about being willing to have your makeup wash off, your eyes tear up, your nose start to run. Its tender partly because it harkens back to infancy, to your mother washing your face with love and lots or water, tending to you, making you clean all over again.

I never had a particularly strong craving to procreate, except for earlier fantasies of wanting to be Marmee in Little Women.

When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens.

We're out there somewhere between the known and the unknown, trying to reel in both for a closer look.