We waste a lot of time and a lot of talent trying to write for the common reader, whom we will never meet. Instead we should be writing for our ideal reader.

Artistic anorexia & sexual avoidance have the same root fears – fear of intimacy, fear of exposure, fear of failure”.

Art is a spiritual practice. We may not, and need not, do it perfectly.

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.

As an experienced artist, I carry my work like a secret pregnancy. I am always aware of inner life and the need to protect it.

Perfectionism has nothing to do with getting it right. It has nothing to do with fixing things. It has nothing to do with standards. Perfectionism is a refusal to let yourself move forward. It is a loop-an obsessive, debilitating closed system that causes you to get stuck in the details of what you are writing or painting or making and to lose sight of the whole.

I have learned, as a rule of thumb, never to ask whether you can do something. Say, instead, that you are doing it. Then fasten your seat belt. The most remarkable things follow.