I usually end have one outrageous minor character. He or she says the stuff I wish I had said in real life. Readers will love that character.

Believe in yourself and start achieving your dream. It waits for you on the other side of the publish button.

Honesty makes stories real and characters memorable. From there, taking them to where they need to go will be all the development they need.

You have to put yourself out there as a writer, you can’t play it safe.

Kids are flat-out freaking hilarious if you are paying attention. Not just my kid, but every kid.

Open your soul and put it out there and dare the world to read it, ready to have them stomp on you and laugh, but ready to do it again the next day.

The best part of being a writer is you get to tell people you’re a writer. That’s still considered cool.

Who do I think would appreciate my book?I’m surprised anybody does. Oops, did I say that out loud?

I wasn’t a class clown, because nuns have no sense of humor. They have rulers.

It’s amazing how my mind opens up right when I have to run on the treadmill. I’ve finished three chapters rather than run a mile.

Writers need to be open to trying new things. My first bestseller was a cookbook, and from that experience I learned things about marketing a book that benefitted me greatly.

The spectacle is at the same time the mirage of self in the mirror of things.

Focus is central to everything you do, and where your focus goes, energy flows

Nothing was a natural predator of productive fiction writing like the cell phone. Ditto the laptop. As she had well learned, the laptop could destroy a day.

Batching or “bucketing” your tasks is ripping the Band- Aid off whenever you have to deal with ongoing activities.

As an integral part of the Department of Agriculture, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service monitors our Nation's agriculture to protect against agricultural pests and diseases.

Quite a lot of our contemporary culture is actually shot through with a resentment of limits and the passage of time, anger at what we can't do, fear or even disgust at growing old.

Great witch, tough woman.

Art still has truth. Take refuge there.

Good directors can bring certain things out of you, with their intensity or gentleness or sensitivity or understanding. They can make an actor feel he can do no wrong.

Everything is emptiness. Everything else, accidental. Emptiness brings peace to your loving. Everything else, disease. In this world of trickery, emptiness is what your soul wants.