If there's a black cat that crosses the street in my path, I will turn around and walk 20 minutes out of my way to not cross it.

As a person, I do ascribe to a lot of magical thinking myself.

In the end, fiction is the craft of telling truth through lies.

While writing, writers are living inside a character or characters, and when the book ekes into the world, writers are living inside the reader. That's more than connecting.

Amor animi arbitrio sumitu, non ponitur; we choose to love; we do not choose to cease loving.

Who, in the midst of passion, is vigilant against illness? Who listens to the reports of recently decimated populations in Spain, India, Bora Bora, when new lips, tongues and poems fill the world?

Depressing thought: my friends were the girls I ate lunch with, all buddies from kindergarten who knew one another so well we weren't sure if we even liked one another anymore.

Sometimes you have to let time carry you past your troubles.

I'm a private person, a shy person. Sometimes, reading for eleven hours straight feels to me like the perfect way to spend a day.

I love Twitter. It's like having a closet full of clever friends that you can visit twice a day, then shove back into the darkness when you're tired of them.

A lot of my work comes from a place of despair or fear. I often write in order to gain some sort of control over aspects of my life or the world that seem too dark to look at directly.

If this society ascribes roles to Black men which they are not allowed to fulfill, is it Black women who must bend and alter our lives to compensate, or is it society that needs changing?

The interests of childhood and youth are the interests of mankind.

Life gives you plenty of time to do whatever you want to do if you stay in the present moment.

Laws are to be enforced justly but firmly, with an iron hand. This is the case anywhere, even in a family.

It costs about $27 million to win a seat in the United States Senate, so when you win one, you like to sit down.

You should only read what is truly good or what is frankly bad.

Founded on faith in God, the United States has been blessed as no other nation.

I was never a very dependable employee for anything. Perfect for the actor's life!

It's just as sure a recipe for failure to have the right idea fifty years too soon as five years too late.

she knew she could help him best by being silent and by being near