If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at the center of your work. Write straight into the emotional center of things. Write toward vulnerability. Risk being unliked. Tell the truth as you understand it. If you’re a writer you have a moral obligation to do this. And it is a revolutionary act—truth is always subversive.

All parents are an embarrassment to their kids. Often grandparents are the relief. Kids don't have to resist you.

Listen to your broccoli and it will tell you how to eat it.

I went to church with my grandparents sometimes and I loved it.

I kept asking God for help, and after a while I realized something -- that Josh was not enjoying this either. He was just trying to take care of himself, and I made the radical decision to let him off the hook.

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?

Most humbling of all is to comprehend the lifesaving gift that your pit crew of people has been for you, and all the experiences you have shared, the journeys together, the collaborations, births and deaths, divorces, rehab, and vacations, the solidarity you have shown one another. Every so often you realize that without all of them, your life would be barren and pathetic. It would be Death of a Salesman, though with e-mail and texting.