The grace to be a beginner is always the best prayer for an artist.

It is not the act of making art that is painful. It is the desire to make something and not acting on it that causes pain....A day when I don't write is less happy. This is not discipline. It is affection, enthusiasm, adventure-any number of other words besides discipline.

Judging your early artistic efforts is artist abuse.

We go into parenting, and we discover that we don't have the answers. We are at a loss.

Money cannot fill an empty soul.

Far from making me feel different and special, my [spiritual] experiences made me feel the same, ordinary, and interconnected. If I felt more spiritual, everyone else felt more spiritual as well. (276)

All of us are far richer than we imagine. None of us possesses a life devoid of magic.