“My ambition was to live like music.”

“Writing is.... being able to take something whole and fiercely alive that exists inside you in some unknowable combination of thought, feeling, physicality, and spirit, and to then store it like a ...”

“If the wrong reader comes across the words, they will remain just words. But for the right readers, your vision blooms off the page and is absorbed into their minds like smoke, where it will re-for...”

“I used to start at about 10 at night and work until early morning. My preferred way to work is to start in the early afternoon and work until about 3, go do errands, have dinner, and then write for...”

“Something like riding a horse - which I've recently started doing - requires courage, especially for me, as I started out being actually scared of horses.”

“A sad person who is so involved with his sadness that he mistakes it for reality will have a hard time seeing himself as anything but sad. For him, the sadness is not a feeling that he experiences ...”

“I am certain of nothing but the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of the Imagination.”

“Nature: it might be the magical key to unlock a locked imagination.”

“Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.”

“I am a person before I am anything else. I never say I am a writer. I never say I am an artist...I am a person who does those things.”

“The point, I decided, wasn't to have the autobiography or even the memories. The point was who I became when I wrote.”

“The willingness to reach inside every part of yourself opens the door to total understanding. You place your entire identity on the line, not just an isolated part. This may sound daunting, but act...”

“I have long thought that anyone who does not regularly - or ever - gaze up and see the wonder and glory of a dark night sky filled with countless stars loses a sense of their fundamental connectedn...”

“I met Ashley two weeks before I married him. It was a joke-the most ridiculous thing I've ever done. Once I was married, I didn't want to be a failure, so I stuck it out for six months, which was a...”

“There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.”