Katagiri Roshi says: "Poor artists. They suffer very much. They finish a masterpiece and they are not satisfied. They want to go on and do another." Yes, but it's better to go on and do another if you have the urge than to start drinking and become alcoholic or eat a pound of good fudge and get fat.

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

We never graduate from first grade. Over and over, we have to go back to the beginning.

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

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

I am free to write the worst junk in the world.

Understand that writing is like an athletic activity. To play tennis well, you expect to keep practicing, but for some reason with writing, you think you should come out fresh the first time.