One thing I'm always thinking about myself is what am I willing to make up? And the answer is not much.

I always tell my students, about the biggest baddest things in life you must try to write small and light, save the big writing for the unexpected tiny thing that always makes or breaks a story.

Dogs change lives. Half Buddha, half Bozo, they keep us tethered to the earth, and teach us to fly. Our dogs are our sanity keepers.

When I was a little kid, I used to walk miles and miles and miles and miles and miles and miles of railroad tracks.

I've been to a lot of school and read a lot of thick books, but at my very core there's a made-for-TV-movie mentality I don't think i will ever shake.

Movement helps keep me centered. I am a disaster, for instance, at sitting meditation, but I'm pretty decent at walking meditation.

Life gives us what we need when we need it; receiving what it gives us is a whole other thing.

I've always said the toughest thing about learning to feel your feelings is that then you have to feel your feelings.

Stillness is a harder concept for me than ecstasy, but I can imagine it best when I am fully present and paying strict attention to a place I am moving through.

It's September 21st, a day I love for the balance it carries with it.

There was something about the prairie for me—it wasn’t where I had come from, but when I moved there it just took me in and I knew I couldn’t ever stop living under that big sky.

I have all I need.

Chumaka ended with a quotation from a play that Jiro favored. “ ‘Small acts partner small houses and small minds'.

What could possibly be more fantastic than reality?

Writing in a nuanced way, getting at all the details in a way that remains interesting for the reader, is very difficult.

The voice does go up in a poem. It is an address, even if it is to oneself.

I am a graphic artist heart and soul, though I find the term artist rather embarrassing.

The morose one refuses to smile even when he has just had his teeth cleaned.

The cookbooks and the writing in general have been a real bonus, but it's not something I've ever pursued... I've been lucky, I guess.

For me, the singer is actually the most important element. When I work with someone, it all comes down to whether I like the singer or not.

Mystery is but another name for ignorance; if we were omniscient, all would be perfectly plain!