We are tyrannized by our options.

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

Pray to God, but row towards shore.

Her lips said 'no', but her eyes said 'read my lips'.

I never had a month or so go by where I haven't had a job, but you always worry that someone will turn off the tap.

No nation can be free if it oppresses other nations.

Death is a master from Germany.

I really think Canada should get over to Iraq as quickly as possible.

Actually there's a very bad trend in some cults about how Guru's are supposed to be mean to their students, and there are some who revel in this and are abusive.

I want to create shows which are interesting. I hope that some people are excited by some of the ideas.

When your fear touches someone’s pain, it becomes pity, when your love touches someone’s pain, it become compassion.

To die: - to sleep: No more; and, by a sleep to say we end The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished.