I was unhappy and I couldn't figure out what was the matter. And he told me to go take a writing course. And I didn't even know that one could learn to write in writing courses.

Donkeys are the most misunderstood and abused animals around the world.

I think by writing about a place with great specificity, you manage to make it universal.

I worked probably fewer jobs than most people, or fewer real soul-killing jobs than other people. I've been a typist, a typesetter, a keyliner, cappuccino-maker. I think I've been pretty lucky.

My donkeys are Jack and Don Quixote. They're very smart, very cautious. Much of what people consider stubbornness in donkeys is actually cautiousness.

As a writer, I can live somewhat independently, occupying nooks and crannies and finding meaning there. I can even live in my mind a good portion of most days.

A mathematical proof is beautiful, but when you're finished, it's really only about one thing. A story can be about many things.

That's where I live, a junkyard in a neighborhood of junkyards. We have three tractors from the 1940s and '50s, several old pickup trucks, and a pile of scrap metal.

I have a second-degree black belt in Okinawan kobudo weapons training.

Time is never wasted coming to an old man bar.

I grew up with donkeys, as well as horses, but I'm more interested in donkeys.

THE RIGHTPOEM FINDS US EXACTLY WHEN IT NEEDS TO.—ATTICUS

A great relationship ... breaches the barriers of a lofty solitude, subdues its strict law, and throws a bridge from self-being to self-being across the abyss of dread of the universe.

Nothing is true, nothing is real except love and our perception of love.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Ignore the negativity in your life. Right now I'm taking bullets for other people and sometimes in life that's where courage comes from.

Matter is spirit at its lowest level. Spirit is matter at its highest level.

A leader must face danger. He must take the risk and the blame, and the brunt of the storm.

…there are no wrong turns, only unexpected paths.

If anyone should have the right or need to carry a gun, it should be the African-American community.

Speak up, speak often and don’t worry about those that at this point cannot understand as they can never un-hear what we tell them.