Love is the spirit that motivates the artist's journey. The love may sublime, raw, obsessive, passionate, awful. or thrilling, but whatever its quality, it's a powerful motive in the artist's life.

An artist must struggle to accept the shape of this universe - and achieve some important successes.

A key to a long, productive writing life is finding ways to support that life, emotionally and existentially.

Almost nothing beautiful or brilliant happens unless a person has thought about it a lot.

Because she favours solitude and indwelling, an artist can live a significantly more claustrophobic life that she had ever intended.

You honor your writing space by recovering, if you are an addict. You honor your writing space by becoming an anxiety expert, a real pro at mindfulness and personal calming. You honor your writing space by affirming that you matter, that your writing life matters, and that your current writing project matters. You honor your writing space by entering it with this mantra: “I am ready to work.” You enter, grow quiet, and vanish into your writing.

An artist feels vulnerable to begin with; and yet the only answer is to recklessly discard more armour.