Courage is more important than confidence

It is in the thousands of days of trying, failing, sitting, thinking, resisting, dreaming, raveling, unraveling that we are at our most engaged, alert, and alive.

I don't know why this is, but I really believe that things don't happen when we're trying to will them into being. They don't happen when we're waiting for the phone to ring, or the email to pop up in our in box. They don't happen when we're gripping too tightly. They happen - if they happen at all - when we've fully let go of the results. And, perhaps, when we're ready.

Recognize the possibility of the divine in any given moment.

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.

As a writer we are our own instruments; we need to protect our instrument, because no one will protect it if we don't.

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