In my life as a wife and mother, I'm always conscious of my desire to be present.

I try to remember that the job - as well as the plight, and the unexpected joy - of the artist is to embrace uncertainty, to be sharpened and honed by it.

It is in the thousands of days of trying, failing, sitting, thinking, resisting, dreaming, raveling, unraveling that we are at our most engaged, alert, and alive.

Writing has been my window-flung wide open to this magnificent, chaotic existence-my way of interpreting everything within my grasp.

Everything you need to know about life can be learned from a genuine and ongoing attempt to write

If I dismiss the ordinary—waiting for the special, the extreme, the extraordinary to happen - I may just miss my life.

I do whatever is necessary in order to maintain the equanimity we all need to withstand the disappointment and rejection that are the lot of every writer, no matter where we are in our careers.

The only graceful thing to do is recognize and embrace what is actually happening, rather than fight against it.

My desk is covered with talismans: pieces of rose quartz, wishing stones from a favorite beach.

How do we live the writer's life? There's only one simple answer: 'we write.'

If you are a writer or any kind of artist, if you change something as fundamental as where you live - the way you live - then I think you change the very instrument that is trying to make the art

But look after yourself - there will be great dangers on the way. Remember, the right road is never the easy road.

Tokyo may have more money and Kyoto more culture Nara may have more history and Kobe more style. But Osaka has the biggest heart.

The special theory of relativity owes its origins to Maxwell's equations of the electromagnetic field.

At the centre of every human being is a God-shaped vacuum which can only be filled by Jesus Christ.

We have found other terms far less vague than the old ones to designate the same complaints. It's a great advance linguistically.

A blockhead cannot come in, nor go away, nor sit, nor rise, nor stand, like a man of sense.

Don't wait for people to tell you who you are. Show them.

I was given a chance and I took it.

I think [song 'Can't Stop Workin'] it's the constant work; performing and traveling. It gets to be a bit of a strain. But if you pace yourself, which I've managed to do, you can go pretty well.

I've always believed in making films that you make the little decisions with your head, but you make the big decisions with your heart.