“Your day’s work might turn out to have been a mess. So what? Vonnegut said, ‘When I write, I feel like an armless legless man with a crayon in his mouth’. So go ahead and make big scrawls and mistakes. Use up lots of paper. Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertent

If god doesn’t work for you, “blend in the influence of someone who is ever so slightly more amused by you, someone less anal. David Byrne is good, for instance. Gracie Allen is good. Mr Rogers will work.”

- Bird by Bird

…one of the most annoying things about God is that he never just touches you with his magic wand, like Glinda The Good, and gives you what you want. Like it would be much skin off his nose. But he might give you the courage or the stamina to write lots and lots of terrible first drafts, and then you’d learn that good second drafts can spring from t

Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation, while writing needs to breathe and move.

- Bird By Bird

In order to be an artist, I must:

Show up at the page. Use the page to rest, to dream, to try.

Set small and gentle goals and meet them.

Remember that it is far harder and more painful to be a blocked artist than it is to do the work.

Remember that it is my work to do the work, not judge the work.

The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Every time you don’t follow your inner guidance, you feel a loss of energy, loss of power, a sense of spiritual deadness.

- Shakti Gawain

Say no to bench-setting cynicism.

The refusal to acknowledge our creativity had its payoffs. We could wonder and worry about our arrogance instead of being humble enough to ask help to move through our fear. We could fantasize about art instead of doing the work. We could proceed to righteously ignore our creativity and never have to take the risks of fulfilling it.