When students write from experience, they can breathe those specifics into their writing- dialect, odd smells, precise names of plants- that can animate even the most tired and tedious text.

You don't learn to write by going through a series of preset writing exercises. You learn to write by grappling with a real subject that truly matters to you.

Here's the secret of writing: there is no secret.

Use your notebook to breathe in the world around you.

Good writing happens when human beings follow particular steps to take control of their sentences-to make their words do what they want them to do.

Writing becomes beautiful when it becomes specific, concrete.

The real meaning of a poem is to stop time.

Poems are the 'daredevil' of writing because a poem will say what nobody else wants to say.

Springtimeand I wish I knew you

Your relationships will take you beyond the boundaries of your normal strength. Encouragement gives struggling people eyes to see the unseen Christ.

When we take into consideration the needs of both ourselves and others, we communicate honestly, compassionately and effectively.

Everyone falls sometimes, son, even me, but the trick is to get right back up. They’ll always target the ones who appear vulnerable, so you need to be strong. Fake it until you make it.

He could not change the man he had been, but these hands would make him the man he could be

I go to a poison registry and I find that no one has died from any overdose of any vitamins, herbs, or amino acids... But FIVE THOUSAND people end up dying from drug reactions in a single year.

When chasing a dream, make sure the price is truly worth paying - if it is, go for it, if not, tweak your dream a little and then go for it.

We've got a responsibility to live up to the legacy of those who came before us by doing all that we can to help those who come after us.

You can't do anything good that you don't feel in your heart.

To be more precise, it's ethics and liberation, and as a consequence there is an ethics of liberation.

There aren't enough good journalists. There are too many who really weren't groomed to be reporters and, as a result, some of the reporting is shallow.