I consider writing a legitimate Zen practice.

Poetry is a dumb Buddha who thinks a donkey is as important as a diamond.

Choose your tools carefully, but not so carefully that you get uptight or spend more time at the stationery store than at your writing table.

Actually, every time we begin, we wonder how we did it before, Each time is a new journey with no maps.

In writing with detail, you are turning to face the world. It is a deeply political act, because you are not staying in the heat of your own emotions. You are offering up some good solid bread for the hungry.

This is what metaphor is. It is not saying that an ant is an elephant. Perhaps; both are alive. No. Metaphor is saying the ant is an elephant. Now, logically speaking, I know there is a difference. If you put elephants and ants before me, I believe that every time I will correctly identify the elephant and the ant. So metaphor must come from a very different place than that of the logical, intelligent mind. It comes from a place that is very courageous, willing to step out of our preconceived ways of seeing things and open so large that it can see the oneness in an ant and in an elephant.

Wherein we discover that many of the "rules" for good writing and good sex are the same: Keep your hand moving, lose control, and don't think.