Knowledge is marvelous, but wisdom is even better.

Mood disorders are terribly painful illnesses, and they are isolating illnesses. And they make people feel terrible about themselves when, in fact, they can be treated.

One of things so bad about depression and bipolar disorder is that if you don't have prior awareness, you don't have any idea what hit you.

I have had manic-depressive illness, also known as bipolar disorder, since I was 18 years old. It is an illness that ensures that those who have it will experience a frightening, chaotic and emotional ride. It is not a gentle or easy disease.

Grief comes and goes, but depression is unremitting.

I love animals, and I was always attracted to the idea of being a zoo veterinarian or a veterinarian with the circus.

Moods are complicated and very much a part of who we are. People would be very boring without them.

Never once, during any of my bouts of depression, had I been inclined or able to pick up a telephone and ask a friend for help. It wasn't in me.

Nothing good comes out of depression.

There are a lot of studies that suggest a higher rate of creativity in bipolars than the general population.

I believe that curiosity, wonder and passion are defining qualities of imaginative minds and great teachers; that restlessness and discontent are vital things; and that intense experience and suffering instruct us in ways that less intense emotions can never do.

Armchair poverty tourism has been around as long as authors have written about class. As an author, I have struggled myself with the nuances of writing about poverty without reducing any community to a catalog of its difficulties.

Redeeming subjects from cliche is its own pleasure and privilege.

After finishing a draft, no matter how rough, I almost always put it aside for a while. It doesn't matter if it's a story or a novel, I find that when it's still fresh in my mind I'm either thoroughly sick of its flaws or completely blind to them. Either way, I'm unable to make substantive edits of any value.

I've been lucky enough to work with extraordinary teachers along the way, and I'm excited to share what I've learned with graduate students at SNHU. I'm just as excited for what I'll learn from them.

It's one of the most liberating things I experience in writing - letting yourself get rid of a gesture or character or plot point that always nagged, even if you couldn't admit to yourself that it did.

The 'here' of Watts is pastel houses with window gratings in curly patterns. 'Here' is yard sales with bins full of stuffed animals and used water guns. Here is Crips turf.

The global phenomenon of poverty tourism - or 'poorism' - has become increasingly popular during the past few years. Tourists pay to be guided through the favelas of Brazil and the shantytowns of South Africa. The recently opened Los Angeles Gang Tour carries visitors through battle-scarred territories of urban violence and deprivation.

The publishing industry, unsurprisingly, is full of different people who love different things and express that love in different languages. Find the people, the editors and agents, with whom you share some language, and some sense of what makes literature worth reading.

Though there might not be any easy answers to the problem of poverty, its most compelling scribes do not resign themselves to representation solely for the sake of those age-old verities of truth and beauty.