Ambition and achievement are great, but gratitude is the true source of joy.

Friendship is in some ways the purest expression of love. Friendship doesn’t ask for something back in the same way that other loves do.

I thought about stories that saved me as a child by showing me what was possible. And then I thought about the stories that were missing.

I gave up on “speaking truth to power” when I remembered our oppressors will never read my poetry.

I believe that’s what most writers want—to share an experience that adds complexity to life and resonates with something someone hasn’t been able to say yet.

Believe in your story. Be persistent. Be creative and find ways around the roadblocks.

As a writer, anything pertaining to the psyche is a rich, vast junkyard I can poke around in to create narratives that align with my own obsessions.

If the writing process is healing, and if this healing process shapes the narrative, then maybe the reading experience can stimulate aspects of the same healing process.

I’m never in a hurry for a piece of writing to wrap up. And I almost never know how it will end.