Keep your hand moving. (Don’t pause to reread the line you have just written. That’s stalling and trying to get control of what you’re saying.)

Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.

Play around. Dive into absurdity and write. Take chances. You will succeed if you are fearless of failure.

If you are not afraid of the voices inside you, you will not fear the critics outside you.

I think talent is like a water table under the earth—you tap it with your effort and it comes through you.

poems are small moments of enlightenment

Writing is the act of discovery.

The responsibility of literatuure is to make people awake, present, alive. If the writer wanders, then the reader, too, will wander.

Begin with “I remember.” Write lots of small memories. If you fall into one large memory, write that. Just keep going. Don’t be concerned if the memory happened five seconds ago or five years ago.

It’s good to go off and write a novel, but don’t stop doing writing practice.

I wake up every morning, and I go to ballet class no matter what's going on the night before. That's my priority, and that's what makes me feel sane and not removed from the realities of my world.

When Tiger was 6 months old, he would sit in our garage, watching me hit balls into a net. He had been assimilating his golf swing. When he got out of the high chair, he had a golf swing.

M stands for Magic, Mystery, or Matrixaccording to taste

For the most part, biophiliacs,lovers of life, are found among simple people, without pretensions.

The stillness of God is perfect. Nothing has to be added to it. Nothing can be taken away.

Who says that fictions only and false hair Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty? Is all good structure in a winding stair?

I don't diet. There's going to be barbecues and macaroni and cheese - but I'll have broccoli and salad the next day.

Since I was both an atheist and an absurdist, I had decided that the most absurd thing I could do would be to develop an intimate relationship with the God I didn't believe in.

There is nothing of any consequence in education, in the economy, in city planning, in social policy that does not concern black people.

I would prefer chess to become part of the Olympic Games. This would also lead to chess become more accepted as a sport in general.