Being with a small publisher has been huge. They bat for me for everything.

Fiction demands structures and recognizable shapes. Big surprises only draw attention to the writer's hand.

The better we are at accepting the limits of our world, the more easily we can embrace what we have.

I could imagine that a character could do almost anything at any time, and that was the freedom of the whole thing. But keeping track of what was plausible for certain characters [was the challenge].

A story is built on characters and reasons.

I'm never going to write a whole paragraph describing what a living room looks like.

I used to do jacket design, and I'm very conscious of covers, and probably meddle more than other authors would.

Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.

Abundance is not the absence of scarcity

Our lives are a divine expression no matter how messy and weird they may be. How much more meaningful can it get? The source is experiencing itself in form in a conscious, awake way.

A man who wears a fragrant flower on his collar spreads a perfume wherever he goes. (141)

Small government is beautiful

The golden age, when rambunctious spirits were regarded as the source of evil.

Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains taken to bring it to light.

Now I want to work with Octavia Spencer, because I met her and she's really funny.

History is everything that has ever happened.

As the struggle for survival has subsided, the question has emerged: survival for what? Ever more people have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.