“There's a point where you find yourself tiptoeing as an artist, and then you know that you're in the wrong place.”

“There's nothing wrong with self-improvement, as long as you recognize that at some point you're going to have to accept yourself in all your imperfect glory. What's wrong with liking yourself the way you are?”

“If you cannot find yourself on the page very early in life, you will go looking for yourself in all the wrong places.”

“If you do not know where you come from, then you don't know where you are, and if you don't know where you are, then you don't know where you're going. And if you don't know where you're going, you're probably going wrong.”

“When you don't know where you're headed, you find places no one else would ever think to explore.”

“Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At that point you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live.”