I feel very rich when I have time to write and very poor when I get a regular paycheck and no time at my real work.

To stay close and intimate with experience is to stay close to the mind; the nitty gritty mind of the way things really are.

Once you have learned to trust your own voice and allowed that creative force inside you to come out, you can direct it to write short stories, novels, and poetry, do revisions, and so on. You have the basic tool to fulfill your writing dreams. But beware. This type of writing will uncover other dreams you have, too-going to Tibet, being the first woman president of the United States, building a solar studio in New Mexico-and they will be in black and white. It will be harder to avoid them.

I think book publishing is fun, but I also know I've been very lucky.

It is simply that person's time. Ours will come in this lifetime or the next. No matter. Continue to practice.

Poetry has never been a favorite American pastime.

If you're having difficulty coming up with new ideas, then slow down. For me, slowing down has been a tremendous source of creativity. It has allowed me to open up -- to know that there's life under the earth and that I have to let it come through me in a new way. Creativity exists in the present moment. You can't find it anywhere else.