If our lives are made up of a string of a thousand moments, at some of those moments we look a lot more spiritually evolved than at others.

Sometimes grace is a ribbon of mountain air that gets in through the cracks.

My friend Terry says that when you need to make a decision, in your work or otherwise, and you don’t know what to do, just do one thing or the other, because the worst that can happen is that you will have made a terrible mistake.

Needless to say, there was no one around remotely fitting the description of a normal person: I was at a writing conference.

I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so. I just try to warn people who hope to get published that publication is not all it is cracked up to be. But writing is. Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises. That thing you had to force yourself to do - the actual act of writing - turns out to be the best part. It's like discovering that while you thought you needed the tea ceremony for the caffeine, what you really needed was the tea ceremony. The act of writing turns out to be its own reward.

Having a baby is like suddenly getting the world's worst roommate.

Very few writers really know what they are doing until they have done it.