No" is a complete sentence.

You are desperate to communicate, to edify or entertain, to preserve moments of grace or joy or transcendence, to make real or imagined events come alive. But you cannot will this to happen. It is a matter of persistence and faith and hard work. So you might as well just go ahead and get started.

You will lose someone you can’t live without,and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.

A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way.

if you want to know how God feels about money, look at whom she gives it to.

I honestly think that in order to be a writer you have to learn to be reverent. If not, why are you writing? Why are you here?

There is ecstasy in paying attention.