The Real Payoff Is The

We're All Afraid Of The Same Stuff. Mostly We're Afraid That We're Secretly Not Okay, That We're Disgusting, Or Frauds, Or About To Be Diagnosed With Cancer. ... We Want To Teach You How To Quiet The Yammer ... How You Can Create Comfort, Inside And Outside, How You Can Get Warm, How You Can Feed Yourself. And Even Learn To Get Through Silence. ... There Is A Wilderness Inside You, And A Banquet. Both. [p. 253]

If You Are A Writer, Or Want To Be A Writer, This Is How You Spend Your Days--listening, Observing, Storing Things Away, Making Your Isolation Pay Off. You Take Home All You've Taken In, All That You've Overheard, And You Turn It Into Gold. (or At Least You Try.)

My Experience As A Writer Is That You Really Do Write Seven And Eight Pages To Find The Paragraph You Were After All Along.

You Can Change The World With A Hot Bath, If You Sink Into It From A Place Of Knowing That You Are Worth Profound Care, Even When You're Dirty And Rattled.

If You Fixate On The Big Picture, The Whole Shebang, The Overview, You Miss The Stitching.