Real love moves freely in both directions. Don't waste your time on anything else.

The most important thing for aspiring writers is for them to give themselves permission to be brave on the page, to write in the presence of fear, to go to those places that you think you can’t write - really that’s exactly what you need to write.

I was amazed that what I needed to survive could be carried on my back. And, most surprising of all, that I could carry it.

I’m a free spirit who never had the balls to be free.

Each night the black sky and the bright stars were my stunning companions; occasionally Id see their beauty and solemnity so plainly that I'd realize in a piercing way that my mother was right. That someday I WOULD be grateful and that in fact I was grateful now, that I felt something growing in me that was strong and real.

The universe, I'd learned, was never, ever kidding. It would take whatever it wanted and it would never give it back.

Writing is part intuition and part trial and error, but mostly it's very hard work.