Dare, instead, to be dangerous. Dare to be truthful. Dare to articulate yourself, and express (or at least become aware of) what would really justify your life.

Create Dangerously was about giving myself permission. There are people who come into writing emboldened and formed. I wasn't like that. I had to give myself permission. People asked me, "Well, what do you know of Haiti? What do you know of America?" I learned to give myself permission, that this is a worthwhile endeavor, that I would fail sometimes, it would work sometimes, but like Maya Angelou says, that place had been earned for me. All I had to do was claim it.

You are making something, a life, a self, and it is an intensely creative task as well as one at which it is more than possible to fail, a little, a lot, miserably, fatally.

I used to imagine adventures for myself, I invented a life, so that I could at least exist somehow.

I had to be willing to risk myself for what I wanted. And I want desire; I want to be capable of it. I want to be deserving of it.

I like taking risks and I decided to put every bit of me into the role.

To take that risk, to offer life and remain alive, open yourself like this and become whole.

I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.

To become original, you have to try something new, which means accepting some measure of risk.

I was anxious to take some action that I could control; to establish something that was mine alone.

The purpose of my life is to try out the ideas I have for it.

I have set my life upon a cast,
And I will stand the hazard of the die.

To make what fate intends for me my own intention

I'd decided to take the risk, and either I'd succeed or else.