The creative process is a process of surrender, not control.

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.

Anger is meant to be acted on. It is not meant to be acted out. Anger points the direction. We are meant to use anger as fuel to take the actions we need to move where our anger points us. With a little thought, we can usually translate the message that our anger is sending us.

By being willing to be a bad artist, you have a chance to be an artist, and perhaps, over time, a very good one.

When we put the pen to paper, we articulate things in our life that we may have felt vague about. Before you write about something, somebody says, 'How do you feel?' and you say, 'Oh, I feel okay.' Then you write about it, and you discover you don't feel okay.

Pivotal to a happy writing life is a practice of daily personal writing.

When we survey our lives, seeking to fulfil our creativity, we often see we had a dream that went glimmering because we believed, and those around us believed, that the dream was beyond our reach.