We can't protect ourselves from pain and heartache.

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

You should focus on those things that will lead you to succeed instead of wasting your time on trivial issues.

Beauty identifies by face, but justifies by only heart.

Showing a lack of self-control is in the same vein granting authority to others: 'Perhaps I need someone else to control me.

The only death I fear is the one I fell when we're apart.

We see ourselves in terms of yesterday and today. Our Heavenly Father sees us in terms of forever.

The aristocracy in the future is not one of wealth or university education, but the aristocracy of the men who have done something for themselves and their fellow men.

I'm a lightweight better be careful what you say With every word I'm blown away You're in control of my heart

Middle class was defined by having certain values and only a certain amount of money. But this new middle class seems to have absolutely no values and an unlimited amount of money.

. . . For a lifetime was but a moment in that place, and each man dreams his own heaven. And in the darkness David closed his eyes, as all that was lost was found again.

I'm not videotaping my life, but in a way I am trying to put certain things about myself on canvas.