I did what most writers do at their beginnings: emulated my elders, imitated my peers, thus turning away from any possibility of discovering truths beneath my skin and behind my eye.

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall.

Looking back over a lifetime, you see that love was the answer to everything.

Don't think. Thinking is the enemy of creativity. It's self-conscious, and anything self-conscious is lousy. You can't try to do things. You simply must do things.

Sometimes you just have to jump out the window and grow wings on the way down.

I know you've heard it a thousand times before. But it's true - hard work pays off. If you want to be good, you have to practice, practice, practice. If you don't love something, then don't do it.

Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Write a short story every week. It's not possible to write 52 bad short stories in a row.

The best way to appreciate your job is to imagine yourself without one.

In the morning, celebrate the beauty and warmth of sun light, in the evening, celebrate the song of silence and love of night.

I'm a struggling writer, I'm struggling to convince people I'm a writer.

It is always our own self that we find at the end of the journey. The sooner we face that self, the better.

I crocheted a blanket larger than a king-size bed. I just kept going.

Life's a car ride...Sometimes it's cruise control down smooth highways. Other times it's potholes on rural roads.

Day and night I always dream with open eyes." - José Martí

I think that artifice is the new reality. It's more about just being honest and sincere to the core of what you do. Whether I'm wearing lots of makeup or no makeup, I'm always the same person inside.

There are so many decisions in making a movie.

We cannot evolve faster than our language. The edge of being is the edge of meaning, and somehow we have to push the edge of meaning. We have to extend it.