My goal is to write every day. I say it is my ideal. I am careful not to pass judgment or create anxiety if I do not do it. No one lives up to his ideal.

Choose your tools carefully, but not so carefully that you get uptight or spend more time at the stationery store than at your writing table.

Know that you will eventually have to leave everything behind; the writing will demand it of you.

When you are not writing, you are a writer too. It doesn't leave you.

Writing is the act of discovery.

Sometimes when you think you are done, it is just the edge of beginning. Probably that's why we decide we're done. It's getting too scary. We are touching down onto something real. It is beyond the point when you think you are done that often something strong comes out.

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.