When I'm writing, I like to seal everything off and face the wall, not to look outside the window. The only way out is through the sentences.

Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

All secrets become deep. All secrets become dark. That's in the nature of secrets.

Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader - not the fact that it is raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.

When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout.

Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.

Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time-rich and cash-poor.

I am often asked the question How can the masses permit themselves to be exploited by the few. The answer is By being persuaded to identify with them.

The three most important documents a free society gives are a birth certificate, a passport, and a library card.

Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book your composition of yourself is at stake.

Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia.

I am amazed at how much I can learn by watching interviews of successful people.

Be peaceful like a mountain. Be loving like a flower. Be wonderous like thunder.

If you don't want somwone to change your life for you, you've got to change it yourself. (Vanishing Acts, pg. 339)

Life unexamined, is not worth living.

I was in civil society long before I was ever in politics or my husband was ever even elected president.

Predict the inevitable", she said, "and you're bound to be right one day.

The soul is not a soul, Has no secret, is small, and it fits Its hollow perfectly: its room, our moment of attention.

I am perceiving everyone, including myself, as an awakening being who is here to claim his or her birthright to the higher consciousness planes of unconditional love and oneness.

Things usually make sense in time, and even bad decisions have their own kind of correctness.