All there is to do, right at this very moment, is to breathe in, breathe out, and kiss the joy as it flies.

I think so much about how we read, about the nature of solitude, and of community, is changing in ways that none of us yet understand.

I'll have my students try to follow their minds during the course of a day, just to see the way their minds work, the way our minds hop from thing to thing to thing. The Internet mirrors that to such a degree you can actually see it. Show me your search history and I'll show you who you are.

In every generation there is a vault-keeper, one who guards the links fiercely and knows they are more precious than rubies.

We don't choose what's going to wake us up.

Writing well involves walking the path of most resistance. Sitting still, being patient, allowing the lunatic dream to take shape on the page, then the shaping, the pencil on the page, breathing, slowing down, being willing–no, more than willing, being wide open–to press the bruise until it blossoms.

I don't want to lean back into the past, or forward into the future. I don't want to wish the present moment away. The truth is in the present moment. The great paradox is that when I'm really able to do that, time slows down and opens up. Time feels suddenly and inexplicably without end.