“No matter how cleverly we disguise our anxieties they bear witness to the imperfect nature of the human heart. To be is to become. To become is not to be. We are a work-in-progress, incomplete, imp...”

“A mistake is the name we give to any action in which we perceive a difference between what we intended and what has occurred. Intention fuels every dramatic action, including the writing of dramati...”

“Originality has nothing to do with producing something new - it is about seeking the source, the primordial ground from which you draw and have always drawn your being. It comes about when one wor...”

“My dear woman, our greatest problem is that almost everything is a goddamned code. We do not know what is real any more. Every gesture is symbolic. A man cannot shit short of some pundit finding hi...”

“Character is not purchased with a dance in the street. It's expensive and hard to come by. Though it is the heir of disappointment, betrayal and frustration, it is not the inheritance that matters ...”

“Poetry is the struggle against the simplification, codification, and mummification of language, it serves as a constant redirect - moving us to the experience to which the words point.”

“It took me years to figure out that upset was upset, and tumultuousness was not the same thing as passion. Love isn't drama.”

“I just wanted to tell you that I understand if you go. Its okay if you have to leave us. Its okay if you want to stop fighting.”

“I'd heard of Evergreen Care Center before. Cass and I had always made fun of the stupid ads they ran on TV, featuring some dragged-out woman with a limp perm and big, painted-on circles under her e...”

“If the story you're telling, is the story you're telling, you're in deep shit.”

“[G]reat stories communicate simple truths that reflect the poetic dimensions of the human soul. Not only do powerful characters help us understand our lives, their stories reflect our core values a...”

“We speak for those who cannot speak. We have a duty to tell the stories for those who do not have the advantages that we have to tell stories. We must not speak falsely. The stories that we are ent...”

“Some writers might tell you that writing is like a piece of magic - a process of creating something out of nothing, and I guess I used to think about it that way too a long long time ago. But as I'...”

“As a writer, you cant get to where you want to be, coming from the place you started, unless you have something extremely important you want to say to someone who really doesnt want to know.”