Handwriting is more connected to the movement of the heart.

Poems are taught as though the poet has put a secret key in his words and it is the reader's job to find it. Poems are not mystery novels.

The things that make you a functional citizen in society - manners, discretion, cordiality - don't necessarily make you a good writer. Writing needs raw truth, wants your suffering and darkness on the table, revels in a cutting mind that takes no prisoners.

At the moment our rational mind stops, hits against a wall ... something else happens. And a bigger mind, like a pearl, rolls in a silver bowl.

In the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the center of chaos, make one definitive act. Just write.

The muscles of writing are not so visible, but they are just as powerful: determination, attention, curiosity, a passionate heart.

I had cancer for fourteen months and wrote a memoir about the experience.