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

Women need space and silence. We too quickly give away our energy. There's something about holding that richness.

The odd thing is, that I wrote The Great Spring while I had cancer and it's not about cancer. It was after I was done with cancer that I wrote a book about it.

We are important and our lives are important, magnificent really, and their details are worthy to be recorded.

You live and then you die, I thought. It's good to have some good times.

Shut up and write anyway. Don't use anything as an excuse.

Use loneliness. Its ache creates urgency to reconnect with the world. Take that aching and use it to propel you deeper into your need for expression - to speak, to say who you are.