I don't know if my mother was a narcissist - or bi-polar or borderline. Those were words she tossed around over the years.

Maybe it goes without saying that if you want to become a famous writer before you’re dead, you’ll have to write something. But the folks in my classes with the biggest ideas and the best publicity shots ready to grace the back covers of their best-selling novels are also usually the ones who aren’t holding any paper.

I think there are different kinds of happiness. We know when we're happy a lot of the time, but then there are those moments that have more of an afterglow, when the happiness has more depth.

Looking for the perfect day is not going to make us happy, because that day isn't going to come.

Settling other people's land is an American tradition.

My own habit had always been to write about the things that ticked me off in a given day. If I kept a journal at all, I kept it to vent.

One thing that blocks flow is self-consciousness.