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

Two things put me in the spirit to give. One is that I have come to think of everyone with whom I come into contast as a patient in the emergency room. I see a lot of gaping wounds and dazed expressions. Or, as Marianne Moore put it, "The world's an orphan's home." And this feels more true than almost anything else I know. But so many of us can be soothed by writing: think of how many times you have opened a book, read one line, and said, "Yes!" And I want to give people that feeling, too, of connection, communication.

Plot springs from character... I've always sort of believed that these people inside me- these characters- know who they are and what they're about and what happens, and they need me to help get it down on paper because they don't type.

But you don't always get what you want;,you get what you get

At our most primitive we are storytellers and dancers.

You can either practice being right or practice being kind.

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.