Making art has taught me that the tiniest smidgen of progress is something to be cherished.

when I talk about a writing life, I'm talking about a life in which writing is the dominant response to living.

Practice being kind to yourself in small, concrete ways. Look at your refrigerator. Are you feeding yourself nicely? Do you have socdks? An extra set of sheets? What about a new house plant? A thermos for the long drive to work? Allow yourself to pitch out some of your ragged clothes. You don't have to keep everything.

We need to bridge our sense of loneliness and disconnection with a sense of community and continuity even if we must manufacture it from our time on the Web and our use of calling cards to connect long distance. We must “log on” somewhere, and if it is only in cyberspace, that is still far better than nowhere at all. (264)

An artist paints, dances, draws, writes, designs, or acts at the expanding edge of consciousness. We press into the unknown rather than the known. This makes life lovely and lively.

Just as blood is a fact of your physical body and nothing you invented, creativity is a fact of your spiritual body and nothing you must invent.

Creativity is the natural order of life. Life is energy: pure creative energy.