Writers will be judged by what they write.

there isn't enough of anything as long as we live. But at intervals a sweetness appears and, given a chance prevails.

Life and death matters, yes. And the question of how to behave in this world, how to go in the face of everything. Time is short and the water is rising.

That's all we have, finally, the words, and they had better be the right ones.

Write about what you know, and what do you know better than your own secrets?

And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.

I could hear my heart beating. I could hear everyone's heart. I could hear the human noise we sat there making, not one of us moving, not even when the room went dark.

It ought to make us feel ashamed when we talk like we know what we're talking about when we talk about love.

The places where water comes together with other water. Those places stand out in my mind like holy places.

Dreams, you know, are what you wake up from.

But I can hardly sit still. I keep fidgeting, crossing one leg and then the other. I feel like I could throw off sparks, or break a window--maybe rearrange all the furniture.

Your moral values & ability to rationalize

Birds sing, wolves howl, crickets chirp. But why? Money? Fame? Record contracts? Endorsements? What's it all for? They do it because they're alive. They do it because life is about making things.

Never allow anyone embarrass you without your consent.

There's something so great about being with your nephew and, when you're tired, just handing him off back to your sister.

The other part of outsourcing is this: it simply says where the work can be done outside better than it can be done inside, we should do it.

Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently promoting what’s not working.

What ever we embrace eventually reveals the place we have been seeking.

I asked all through third, fourth and fifth grade, when they were asking kids to be in the band, to be in the school band. But they wouldn't let me do it.

I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long. Just figure out what's next.