I have no literary fears.

Don't classify me, read me. I'm a writer, not a genre.

Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.

Writing is a struggle against silence.

The United States has written the white history of the United States. It now needs to write the black, Latino, Indian, Asian and Caribbean history of the United States.

Art gives life to what history killed. Art gives voice to what history denied, silenced, or persecuted. Art brings truth to the lies of history.

I need, therefore I imagine.

One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.

What's happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is one of the grossest violations of human rights under the Geneva Conventions that we have record of. It is simply monstrous.

Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.

You start by writing to live. You end by writing so as not to die.

I've always wanted to make a bluegrass album.

99.9% of plumbers make less than a quarter million dollars a year, and I'm going to give Joe a break whether he wants it or not.

And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord. The superstition of the people was not embittered theological rancor.

Occasionally I like a really good pair of shoes. A pair of leather shoes from Gieves & Hawkes in England, Buckshot Brogue, they look really sick.

Don't worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don't even try.

Every experience in life is designed to magnify the cross of Christ.

I wouldn't mind being a hero to a kid. I grew up idolizing players, so I know how important that is for a lot of younger kids.

Anybody can have common sense, provided that they have no imagination.

We must meet violence with violence.

Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood? Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?