I can't explain inspiration. A writer is either compelled to write or not. And if I waited for inspiration I wouldn't really be a writer.

I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer - its dust and lowering skies.

If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.

The function of freedom is to free someone else.

Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race - scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct... it has a social function, racism.

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.

Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.

Like people would ever want to read books on an electronic screen.

The line we draw between animals that are socially acceptable and those we find repugnant can be awfully arbitrary.

There's no authoritarian structure at Reed College, but the education is conservative. So what you have is a lot of students who are very authentically looking for truth.

There was free trade in Africa. There was free enterprise in Africa before the colonialists came.

You couldn't release the single on its own, because no one wanted it.

Every savage can dance.

Life's too short not to tell the people you love how you feel. Say it... and say it often. Oh, and start with God.

I am an apolitical Prime Minister. Apart from elections, I don't get involved into politics ever.

We were making love in the back of a truck and we got carried away.

When someone less capable is ahead of me, I am not pleased. It makes me insane.