I think that when you reveal things that are going to cause pain, you have rhetorical resources in poetry.

I was always a reader. In the fifth grade, I got some sort of prize for having read hundreds of books from the library.

The sun does what it does because the earth tilts.

Orwell says somewhere that no one ever writes the real story of their life. The real story of a life is the story of its humiliations.

Society imposes an identity on you because of the way you look. Your struggle as a self has to do with an identity being imposed on you that you know is not your identity.

You probably have to split yourself in various ways just in order to survive, and to think of yourself as a multitude.

I would say that when I write prose I'm a more socially responsible person. I'm much more a citizen of the world. But the instability of the poetry, the emotional jaggedness, is also me.

You don't think of yourself as your external representation, or even your national origin or anything like that. You don't reduce yourself to that. That's kind of unthinkable.

I resist thinking of myself as a teacher. I think of myself as a writer who has pulled a fast one and hoodwinked this institution into giving me a job and health insurance.

We all think of ourselves as our subjectivity, our consciousness.

It's important for all writers to try to figure out what they're doing.

Es gibt immer einen Punkt dabei, wo man nicht mehr weiß, ob man lügt oder ob das, was man erfunden hat, wahrer ist als man selber.

In my lap I had my dear little pug, the smell of whose ears will always be sweeter to me than all the perfumes of Araby and the scent of heliotrope combined.

I have flown ValuJet. ValuJet is a safe airline, as is our entire aviation system.

People kept asking, Whats your market? Ive got no idea at all other than me, an eleven year old kid in a 56-year-old body. But there are a lot of us out there.

A big chunk of Western civilization, consciously or otherwise, has given the impression that it's dying to surrender to somebody, anybody. Reasonably enough, Islam figures: Hey, why not us?

Film in the 20th century, it's the American art form, like jazz.

The words 'God is love' conclude a biblical warning, not a warm and fuzzy slogan. 'He who doesn't love [his neighbor] doesn't love God, for God is love.'

Veganism is simply letting compassion guide our choice of food. As such, it is a basic Buddhist practice that ought to be expected of everyone who takes refuge vows.

There is nothing wrong with changing a plan when the situation has changed.

Oh my God, that is the best coffee I've ever tasted.