I often think that the prime directive for me as a teacher of writing is akin to that for a physician, which is this: do no harm.

For sometimes you can't help but crave some ruin in what you love.

It is 'where we are' that should make all the difference, whether we believe we belong there or not.

The truth, finally, is who can tell it.

As for what's the most challenging aspect of teaching, it's convincing younger writers of the importance of reading widely and passionately.

So my first book I had no experience having written a book, but each book is a little snapshot of who you are at that moment, accrued all through time, so I accept that.

In this difficult era the most valuable commodity is the unfailing turn of the hours and how they retrieve for us the known harbor of yesterday.

They're not parallel at all. They're my concerns, but how they're expressed particularly on the page is completely divorced from who I am in my street life.

Don’t sanctuaries become prisons, and vice versa, foremost in the mind?

Imagination might not be limitless. It's still tethered to the universe of what we know.

For at some point, each of us will be asked to embody what we feel and know.

I think of you, therefore I exist.

Build a relationship with your inner self, you will never feel alone.

Lo, which a greet thing is affeccioun!Men may die of imaginacioun, So depe may impressioun be take.

It is usually the case with most men that their nature is so constituted that they pity those who fare badly and envy those who fare well.

People ask me how come you've been around so long. Well, it's through playing the part of Mr Average Joe American.

Whether elected or appointed he considers himself the Lord's anointed, and indeed the ointment lingers on him so thick you can't get your fingers on him.

Jews and Muslims 'dialoguing' has nothing to do with Palestine. The problem is settler colonialism, apartheid and occupation, not religion.

If you're a musician or actor, you know that if you're successful, some level of fame goes along with that. You're prepared. But how often does that happen to a programmer?

I appreciate that young girls look up to me. And I take that very seriously.

The fringed curtains of thine eye advance, And say what thou seest yond.