Wait until you are hungry to say something, until there is an aching in you to speak.

Writing is the crack through which you can crawl into a bigger world, into your wild mind.

This is your life. You are responsible for it. You will not live forever. Don't wait.

Writing practice brings us back to the uniqueness of our own minds and an acceptance of it. We all have wild dreams, fantasies, and ordinary thoughts. Let us to feel the texture of them and not be afraid of them.Writing is still the wildest thing I know.

One poem or story doesn't matter one way or the other. It's the process of writing and life that matters.

In the past few years I've assigned books to be read before a student attends one of my weeklong seminars. I have been astonished by how few people -- people who supposedly want to write -- read books, and if they read them, how little they examine them.

I still write with pen and paper and have someone type it on a computer. But rewriting I do by hand.