Everything you need to know about life can be learned from a genuine and ongoing attempt to write

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

I do whatever is necessary in order to maintain the equanimity we all need to withstand the disappointment and rejection that are the lot of every writer, no matter where we are in our careers.

What's more important that spiritual life? It seems to me it's the bedrock of everything essential about being human.

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.

When I was growing up, I had no idea that I could possibly become a writer. I wrote endlessly in journals - a practice I maintained for a long time, well into the writing life I had no idea I could ever have.

I've always felt like my nose is pressed to glass. I always feel a little bit like an outsider.