And we can't avoid an inch of our own experience; if we do it causes a blur, a bleep, a puffy unreality. Our job is to wake up to everything, because if we slow down enough, we see that we are everything.

I don't know anything but writing practice, and so what I really do is direct that energy as if it were flowing down a river.

I love and care about literature, and great writers are our teachers. You're studying their mind when you read their work.

We always worry that we are copying someone else, that we don't have our own style. Don't worry. Writing is a communal act. Contrary to popular belief, a writer is not Prometheus alone on a hill full of fire. We are very arrogant to think we alone have a totally original mind. We are carried on the backs of all the writers who came before us. We live in the present with all the history, ideas, and soda pop of this time. It all gets mixed up in our writing.

If you love the work, it will love you back.

Great lovers realize that they are what they are in love with.

If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you.