I used to act in television commercials when I was a kid and a young adult.

I'm most connected to myself when I'm alone in a room, moving my hand across a page. That's when I feel most like me.

I try to remember that the job - as well as the plight, and the unexpected joy - of the artist is to embrace uncertainty, to be sharpened and honed by it.

There's nothing confessional about crafting and shaping a story out of a lived life. In fact, it's quite the opposite - the writer has to be able to transcend the life, to see it as if standing outside of it, in order to be able to make something of it. There's something enormously satisfying and gratifying about crafting something, taking all that chaos and giving it shape.

In a creative journey, it is essential, no matter how far one runs, to examine that which is closest to home.

We can't protect ourselves from pain and heartache. In fact, to love - fully, madly, deeply - is the ensure heartache some day.

Michael Lowenthal has written a big-hearted and wise book about familial love in all its richness and complexity.