Being a writer is part of a noble tradition, as is being a musician – the last egalitarian and open associations. No matter what happens in terms of fame and fortune, dedication to writing is a marching-step forward from where you were before, when you didn’t care about reaching out to the world, when you weren’t hoping to contribute, when you were just standing there doing some job into which you had fallen.

I was usually filled with a sense of something like shame until I'd remember that wonderful line of Blake's- that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love- and I would take a long deep breath and force these words out of my strangulated throat: "Thank you.

And as it turns out, if one person is praying for you, buckle up. Things can happen.

I’m probably just as good a mother as the next repressed, obsessive-compulsive paranoiac.

I like to read away as much of the afternoon as possible, until real life rears its ugly head.

You get your intuition back when you make space for it, when you stop the chattering of the rational mind.

Get to know your characters as well as you can let there be something at stake, and then let the chips fall where they may.