If there is any human tragedy, there is only one, and it occurs when we forget who we are and remain silent while a stranger takes up residence inside our skin.

writing is like being in love. You never get better at it or learn more about it. The day you think you do is the day you lose it. Robert Frost called his work a lover's quarrel with the world. It's ongoing. It has neither a beginning nor an end. You don't have to worry about learning things. The fire of one's art burns all the impurities from the vessel that contains it.

And every good artist knows that the gift comes from somewhere else, and it's there for a reason, and that's to make the world a better place.

There's nothing like rejection to make you do an inventory of yourself.

The real gladiators of the world are so humble in their origins and unremarkable in appearance that when we stand next to them in a grocery-store line, we never guess how brightly their souls can burn in the dark.

Why do I always feel like you're trying to staple my umbilical cord to the corner of your desk?

Neither our own passing nor the passing of an era is a tragedy, no matter how much we would like to think it is.