Nick Flynn

Certain stories we carry with us, events in our life, they define who we are. It's not a matter of getting over anything; we have to make the best of it.

That's the thing about a book: You're in the public life for a little bit, and then you sort of go away for a little while - several years, in my case - and then you come out again, hopefully.

Everything we do, I'd imagine, influences everything we will do.

There's this sort of male energy that we have that can seem very destructive. But it doesn't have to be. It actually can be a very positive force.

I became an electrician after high school. But I always had this thing in me to write. But it was always a little shameful. To say you were a poet was saying you were kind of crazy, and I carried that around for a long time. I still kind of carry that. And I think it might be true, actually.

Change is one of the only constants in Buddhism; as meditation became the way I breathed in the days, this became apparent.

I can weep pretty easily. I can get tears in my eyes from a beautiful work of art.