I had many wonderful experiences, received beautiful letters, and my Christian books received substantive and thoughtful reviews. But there was always argument, dispute, questions as to what I "really" believed, lectures from here and there on "the real truth," etc.

When we talk about our lives, long or short, brief and tragic or enduring beyond comprehension, we impose a continuity on them, and that continuity is a lie.

And books, they offer one hope -- that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that universe, one is saved.

We breathe the light, we breathe the music, we breathe the moment as it passes through us.

You reach deep down and bring up what feels absolutely authentic to you as you move along with the book, but you don't know everything about it. You can't.

The world changes, we do not, therein lies the irony that kills us.

If you want to be a writer, write. Write and write and write. If you stop, start again. Save everything that you write. If you feel blocked, write through it until you feel your creative juices flowing again. Write. Writing is what makes a writer, nothing more and nothing less.