Maggie Shipstead takes hold of the reader and doesn't let go. Astonish Me is a haunting, powerful novel.

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

What better time to try something new than when you have nothing to lose.

Respect yourself is you would have others respect you.

Don’t let psychological warfare from an advertisement campaign blind you from the truth of your beauty, possibility, worthiness, and purpose.

It is, of course, quite true that God will not love you any less, or have less use for you, if you happen to have been born with a very second-rate brain.

It's easy to love humanity when you're this far away from it.

Public officers are the servants and agents of the people, to execute the laws which the people have made.

The power we call God defies description.

As a parent, the responsible thing to do - if you love your child - is to vaccinate your child.

It is easier to write an indifferent poem than to understand a good one.

It's definitely scary to follow a book that's been turned into a Netflix series and found as much success as Girlboss did.