A good-enough novel violently written now is better than a perfect novel meticulously written never.

As the saying goes, "Argue for your limitations and you get to keep them." Why would I want to keep my limitations?

Fear is a desolate boneyard where our dreams go to desiccate in the hot sun.

Do you have the courage? Do you have the courage to bring forth this work? The treasures that are hidden inside you are hoping you will say yes." (quoting Jack Gilbert)

[C]reative living is a path for the brave.

If you don't learn to travel comfortably alongside your fear, then you'll never be able to go anywhere interesting or do anything interesting.

[There is a] quiet glory [in] merely making things, and then sharing those things with an open heart and no expectations.

And at the end of your days, you can thank creativity for having blessed you with a charmed, interesting, passionate existence.

Work with all your heart, because - I promise - if you show up for your work day after day after day after day. you just might get lucky enough some random morning to burst into bloom.

It might have been done before, but it hasn’t been done by you!

It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case if that I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something

Defeat, if you survive it, should mean time for reflection.

I never photograph sunsets and I never photograph moonrises. I'm not interested in what things look like.

Our American republic will endure only as long as the ideas of the men who founded it continue dominant.

Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; let fortune's bubbles rise and fall; who sows a field, or trains a flower, or plants a tree, is more than all.

I don't think there are any churches that have "Thou shalt not believe in climate change" written in their actual statement of faith.

Usually the hard stuff you’re forced to do makes you learn a lot.

My view of life is, that it's next to impossible to convince anybody of anything.

The music was my friend, my lover, my family.

I know, in my heart of hearts, I don't do things for money.

Women are half the society. You cannot have a revolution without women. You cannot have democracy without women. You cannot have equality without women. You can't have anything without women.