Read Books. They Are Good For Us.

Wait Until You Are Hungry To Say Something, Until There Is An Aching In You To Speak.

I Came Out With A Book Called The True Secret Of Writing: Connecting Life With Language. It's A Book That Describes How Writing Is A Practice And How My Teaching Is Part Of That Practice. I Direct The Writing And Create Books But Underneath, There's Always The River Of Practice Happening. No Good, No Bad. Just Do It.

I Told All Kinds Of Stories About Going To Japan, About Playing Ball With My Father... I Wanted To Record My Life In Case It Was Going To End Soon. So, I Wrote That And It Was Very Comforting To Have That Practice In The Afternoons In My Living Room. I Just Wrote About My Life.

We Have To Look At Our Own Inertia, Insecurities, Self-hate, Fear That, In Truth, We Have Nothing Valuable To Say. When Your Writing Blooms Out Of The Back Of This Garbage Compost, It Is Very Stable. You Are Not Running From Anything. You Can Have A Sense Of Artistic Security. If You Are Not Afraid Of The Voices Inside You, You Will Not Fear The Critics Outside You.

Life Is Not Orderly. No Matter How We Try To Make Life So, Right In The Middle Of It We Die, Lose A Leg, Fall In Love, Drop A Jar Of Applesauce. In Summer, We Work Hard To Make A Tidy Garden, Bordered By Pansies With Rows Or Clumps Of Columbine, Petunias, Bleeding Hearts. Then We Find Ourselves Longing For The Forest, Where Everything Has The Appearance Of Disorder; Yet We Feel Peaceful There.