“If time was a string connecting all of your stories, that party would be the point where everything knots up. And that knot keeps growing and growing, getting more and more tangled, dragging the rest of your stories into it.”

“How quietly experience slips away unnoticed, camouflaged by it relative unimportance. Then at some point you step back and take a look and what's in front of you is a tangled wad of string. All the un-importants rolled together in a loose knot, to be recognized as your very own and cherished or mistaken for trash and discarded. And if you're lucky, it hits you; that knot of string, wound and intertwined is your life, and savoring it is what you want to do”

“I like to think of what happens to characters in good novels and stories as knots--things keep knotting up. And by the end of the story--readers see an unknotting of sorts. Not what you expect, not the easy answers you get on TV, not wash and wear philosophies, but a reproduction of believable, emotional experiences.”

“We could all spend a lifetime unraveling the knots of our childhood, but at some point you realize the knots are no longer yours. They belong to your parents, and their parents before them. The legacy is long and complicated, the damage passed on through generations, until one day someone finally stops and says: This story does not belong to me. ~"This I Know”

“Tell the story that's been growing in your heart, the characters you can't keep out of your head, the tale story that speaks to you, that pops into your head during your daily commute, that wakes you up in the morning.”

“Your fear remains strong. You are not ready to face your story, preferring instead to surround yourself with knots. Someday, they will strangle you.”