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

I could become like that dyslexic agnostic in the old joke - the one who lies in bed and tries to figure out if his dog exists.

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.

Don’t underestimate this gift of finding a place in the writing world: if you really work at describing creatively on paper the truth as you understand it, as you have experienced it, with the people or material who are in you, who are asking that you help them get written, you will come to a secret feeling of honor.

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?

Summer nearly does me in every year. It's too hot and the light is unforgiving and the days go on way too long.

Never compare your insides to everyone else's outsides.