Traces that live within us often lead us to our stories

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

Greatness is not a term of success, but of endurance.

Life is always just to learn.

Work Hard Until You No Longer Have To Introduce Yourself.

And if you lose the willingness, what do you have?

My publisher feels that my readers are loyal to the voice of my stories, the characters I'm creating.

The study of history, it seems to me, leads to the conviction that all important events tend toward the same end - the civilization of mankind.

The town where I grew up has a zip code of E-I-E-I-O.

Nature never deserts the wise and pure; no plot so narrow, be but nature there; no waste so vacant, but may well employ each faculty of sense, and keep the heart awake to love and beauty.

The only way to stay sane is to go a little crazy.

Use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping?