I tend to resist invitations to interpret my own fiction.

(I)f we are going to be kind, let it be out of simple generosity, not because we fear guilt or retribution.

The writers who have the deepest influence on one are those one reads in ones more impressionable, early life, and often it is the more youthful works of those writers that leave the deepest imprint.

When all else fails, philosophize.

We must cultivate, all of us, a certain ignorance, a certain blindness, or society will not be tolerable.

I know somewhat too much; and from this knowledge, once one has been infected, there seems to be no recovering.

All creatures come into the world bringing with them the memory of justice.

But he cannot see a connection between the end of yearning and the end of poetry. Is that what growing up amounts to: growing out of yearning, of passion, of all intensities of the soul?

I don't think we are ready to die, any of us, not without being escorted.

A book should be an axe to chop open the frozen sea inside us.

Become major, Paul. Live like a hero. That's what the classics teach us. Be a main character. Otherwise what is life for?

Ambition, in one respect, is like a singer's voice; pitched at too high a key, it breaks and comes to nothing.

We view our Nation's strength and security as a trust, upon which rests the hope of free men everywhere.

I was gung-ho, no question about that.

It's because you alienate half the room talking about sports. Half the crowd will be against you no matter what you say.

To burn a CDR of music you like to give as a gift to someone you wish to become closer to is a cold, moist-palmed, mouth-breathing bummer.

Nick O'Leary loves to compete. His work ethic is fantastic, and that's what I like about him. He works, and works, and works; and if he has to get better, he gets better.

It is clear before God and man that the entire war on HIV and AIDS has not been waged with any degree of piety, responsibility and care.

To rise with the lark, and go to bed with the lamb.

Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony, side by side on my keyboard piano, oh Lord, why don't we?

There are two classes of poets - the poets by education and practice, these we respect; and poets by nature, these we love.