The fact is that most husbands, regardless of religion - it's an old-fashioned gender divide where the husband wants to stay home and the wife is the one who drags herself and her children to whatever spiritual center they're going to.

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.

The Internet and all its lures are much, much harder than anything I've ever encountered. If you're writing on a computer, the very instrument you're writing on is already tainted by the world out there in all its permutations.

I could spend two years cross-legged on my floor and feel like I was working.

You have to believe in yourself before the world has given you any indication that you should believe in yourself as a writer.

There is no end to the promotion. There is no end to the possibilities. You can continue to promote a book for years, literally.

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