You are going to feel like hell if you never write the stuff that is tugging on the sleeves in your heart--your stories, visions, memories, songs: your truth, your version of things, in your voice. That is really all you have to offer us, and it's why you were born.

Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.

Can you imagine the hopelessness of trying to live a spiritual life when you’re secretly looking up at the skies not for illumination or direction, but to gauge, miserably, the odds of rain?

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor; the enemy of the people. It will keep you insane your whole life.

Dogs are the closest we come to knowing the divine love of God on this side of eternity.

If the present is really all we have, then the present lasts forever.

You are going to love some of your characters because they are you or some facet of you, and you are going to hate some of your characters for the same reason.