Life does not seem to present itself to me for my convenience, to box itself up nicely so I can write about it with wisdom and a point to make before putting it on a shelf somewhere.

I love silence. I seek and create it at every opportunity. I need it to work.

The stuff I write about is pretty universal, the things my closest friends and I talk about - our anxiety about being here on this scary planet, during these scary times, as vulnerable as kittens, having lost so many people I couldn't live without.

Charles had once remarked that holding onto a resentment was like eating rat poison and waiting for the rat to die.

It was not facing what life dealt that made you crazy, but rather trying to set life straight where it was unstraightenable.

Prayer is talking to something or anything with which we seek union, even if we are bitter or insane or broken. (In fact, these are probably the best possible conditions under which to pray.) Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up.

E.L. Doctorow said once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.