“We will need to find people who will provide a safe writing space for us, where criticism comes late and love and delight come early.—from Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing”

“Writing starts with living.—Rumors of Water: Thoughts on Creativity & Writing”

“You can get yourself pretty thoroughly lost, in time and space, if you don't know where you are or where you have just come from. How is this relevant to creative writing and writing programs? First of all, there is a certain amount of misinformation masquerading as assumed history -- as the story of creative writing in America.”

“WHAT IS SAFE? Is safe the hands that hold you no matter what? Or is safe someone hurting enough to fight? Is safe the one who is strong as a pillar? Or is safe who wants to use the strength of two, not one? Is love safe? Or is it better to find comfort? Can there be comfort without love? Can passion come from warmth? Or does it need to come from fire?”

“If we come from the water, I conclude that we come from different kinds of it. I will meet a person and in his eyes see an ocean, deep and never ending; then I will meet another person and feel as though I have stepped into a shallow puddle on the street, there is nothing in it. Or maybe some of us come from the water, and some of us come from somewhere else; then it's all a matter of finding those who are the same as us.”

“Writing comes from the angels in your soul. The gifts there are shared through the keyboard to the page. The reader finds everything they need by your written word.”