I live through risk. Without risk there is no art. You should always be on the edge of a cliff about to fall down and break your neck.

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.

Things are what they are, and whatever will be, will be.

Why be boring? Have some fun. Rock shows should be like movies: I don't go to a movie hoping it'll change my life.

For when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through places without water, seeking rest; and not finding. . .

I never thought that buying supplements and vitamins, it was going to hurt anybody's feelings.

I don’t like the gringos at all. They are very boring and all have faces like unbaked rolls.

A drunk doesn't try to stand up; a drunk tries not to fall down.

We are not superior. There are no clear distinctions between us and animals.

There's a Mother's Day and there's a Father's Day, but there's no Children's Day. It would mean a lot. World peace.

A modest person seldom fails to gain the goodwill of those he converses with, because nobody envies a man who does not appear to be pleased with himself.

When God saved me, He gave me a thirst to learn and to read and to study. I thrived in college. I got a bachelor's degree in philosophy and then went to Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando.