It’s much better to be a tribal writer, writing for all people and reflecting many voices through us, than to be a cloistered being trying to find one peanut of truth in our own individual mind. Become big and write with the whole world in your arms.

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

The correctness and quality of what you write do not matter; the act of writing does.

This is the practice school of writing. Like running, the more you do it, the better you get at it. Some days you don't want to run and you resist every step of the three miles, but you do it anyway. You practice whether you want to or not. You don't wait around for inspiration and a deep desire to run ... That's how writing is too ... One of the main aims in writing practice is to learn to trust your own mind and body; to grow patient and nonaggressive.

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

A responsibility of literature is to make people awake, present, alive. If the writer wanders, then the reader, too, will wander.

We walk through so many myths of each other and ourselves; we are so thankful when someone sees us for who we are and accepts us.