A personal essay often includes some or a lot of personal confession. That makes the reader feel less lonely in their confusion and darkness.

The prospect of a long day at the beach makes me panic. There is no harder work I can think of than taking myself off to somewhere pleasant, where I am forced to stay for hours and 'have fun'.

Hedonism can be a rational response to a difficult life.

The essay must be artistically rendered: You must keep the reader engaged, whether with wit, conflict, mischief, and/or yes, with honesty.

Until people see poetry as springing from all of life, they will isolate it in a creativity corner and treat it like a mascot.

Most good essays are conversations with yourself - not just your decided thoughts but your dilemmas.

The trick is to realize that one is not important, except insofar as one’s example can serve to elucidate a more widespread human trait and make readers feel a little less lonely and freakish.

Have fun writing, because it enhances both the writer's and reader's experience.

Confession makes you a more trustworthy narrator.

In new work, we need to see the shadow, however faint, of previous literary effort.

I am apt to be harsh in my secret judgments of others, seeing them as defective because they are not enough like me.

Don't let disappointments & mistakes of the past control and direct your future. Your source of direction and everything is in Christ Jesus

98% of all comedians feel obliged to be funny when interviewed. Less than 2% succeed.

Writing a teen character is something I wanted to try again for a long time!

Maybe I'm too busy being yours to fall for somebody new.

Usually, I just do what I want, because I got it that way.

Don't claim you're sincere, just be it.

If you have a dream don't let anyone talk you out of it.

Protest against Industrial Capitalism from one aspect or another is universal: so was the protest against the condition of European religion at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

I think my books come out very visual, which is an obvious consequence.

Cruelty practiced as a matter of social principle or public policy, and presented to the community as a means to a higher goal is the most obscene and decadent phenomenon of any civilization.