The most powerful speaking you can do is the speaking that comes from your heart and your love.

Get yourself empty in the Eastern sense. Not in the Western sense. In the Western sense when we feel empty we feel lonely, miserable, but in the Eastern sense - "I'm so empty, because I'm filled with everything, and I'm connected to everything." It's very energizing. You want that kind of emptiness, whatever you have to do to get yourself quiet.

Heartbreak allows us to also experience joy and love but you have to walk through heartbreak to even know what joy is. Heartbreak is a constant and it is even necessary. It allows us the opportunity of introspection and exploration. Those processes are what is necessary to write and engage in the arts.

Believe it or not, Mexican cooking, for those of you who have not gone farther south than Taco Bell, uses a lot of vegetables. But those vegetables were not brought here, like corn mushrooms, huitlacoche, or squash blossoms.

I don't really think our government at heart wants peace. So I urge you, write to Mrs. Laura Bush, because she reads.

A second person that's come to my life very recently, and I'm thankful for it, is Marshall Rosenberg, the founder of the Nonviolent Communication Organization. He has all these books about how we can use our language nonviolently to help create peace. He's using a lot of Buddhism too, but he's helping me to think about language.

I'm filled with a new joy mixed with old grief.