As a writer, I find holidays often disturbing, not liberating, in their disruption of tempo, their open-ended time.

Stop telling yourself that dreams don't matter, that they are only dreams and that you should be more sensible.

I learned to just show up at the page and write down what I heard. Writing became more like eavesdropping and less like inventing a nuclear bomb.

Progress, not perfection, is what we should be asking of ourselves.

Expect the universe to support your dream. It will.

As artists, we must learn to be self-nourishing. We must become alert enough to consciously replenish our creative resources as we draw on them.

At root, a pearl is a 'disturbance' a beauty caused by something that isn't supposed to be there, about which something needs to be done. It is the interruption of equilibrium that creates beauty. Beauty is a response to provocation, to intrusion. ... The pearl's beauty is made as a result of insult.