Our desires teach us who we are and who we want to become. Our desires shape our stories.

Wonder is not a Pollyanna stance, not a denial of reality; wonder is an acknowledgement of the power of the mind to transform, to notice, to decide what experience shall mean.

When you’re stuck in a spiral, to change all aspects of the spin you need only to change one thing.

Writing bridges the inner and outer worlds and connects the paths of action and reflection.

Words are how we think; stories are how we link.

Journal writing is a voyage to the interior.

In the midst of overwhelming noise and distraction, the voice of story is calling us to remember our true selves.

To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are against.

The purpose of life is not to maintain personal comfort; it's to grow the soul.

Spiritual life is contractual. The sacred cannot dialogue with the unresponsive.

Creatures of a very particular making, we need to know the cultural blinders that narrow our world view as well as the psychological blinders that narrow our view of our personal experience.

You will know a friendship is not natural when you don't feel relaxed with

If you don't feel drowsy after lunch and don't yawn in the office, you're not a perfect employee!

I'd be a dope to compare my writing with Wallace Stegner's, but that book probably influenced me in ways I didn't even realize while I was writing The Night Journal.

All the records of your past lives are contained within your own mind, just as the records of your ancestors are contained within your DNA.

I think today we recognize that economic activity needs to search for ways to protect the environment.

I'm belligerent rather than ambitious.

Play is the answer to how anything new comes about.

If I depended on the critics' judgment and recognition, I'd never have gone into the motion-picture business.

Few friendships could survive the moodiness of love affairs.

We need to celebrate stories by women, for women, as just one more way to redress gender injustice.