I wonder if I don't give too much of myself to writing: I am always half where I am; the other half is feeding the furnace, kick-starting the heat of creativity. I am making love with someone but at the same time I'm noticing how this graceful hand across my belly might just fit in with the memory of lilacs in Albuquerque in 1974.

Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.

In a way, the cancer became an ally because it stopped me from running around so much. I was able to settle down and write things I hadn't had a chance to before.

In the middle of the world, make one positive step. In the center of chaos, make one definitive act. Just write.

Can we walk that thin line between constant change and continuation? And in the middle of this flux, feel gratitude but not hold on? Gratitude greases the joints to let us let go, and at the same time to stop and realize we received something. Gratitude is the most developed and mature of human emotions.

The deepest secret in our heart of hearts is that we are writing because we love the world.

Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make it so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, or drop a jar of applesauce.