In poetry, I didn't have to provide resolution. I could ask hard questions without feeling responsible for the answers.

I couldn't write about love without writing about hate - specifically, how the experience of hatred embeds itself in the body and prevents love from entering or leaving.

I have been and continue to be committed to art as a tool to ignite, comfort, and discomfort.

Now is not the time for Canadians to be sanctimonious. It is time for us to be prudent and active.

Children's books have great potential to reveal new possibilities to readers, because the intended audience is at an age of genuine learning.

As a person of color, I know race can't be stripped from admiration or preference.

I have dedicated a significant portion of my time and artistry to making art that addresses various forms of oppression, including white supremacy, misogyny, and biphobia.

I do use art as a site of protest, particularly in relation to dominant narratives.

I feel like I have had to catch up to the art I've made, and learn from the protagonists I have written, especially in relation to gender.

It's exciting to consider how art, in its ability to reveal, can be ahead of the artist.

When I was writing, I wanted every word to be not only deliberate, but musical. Precious.

Don't dwell on things. Don't stay in one place too long. It was the only way to stay ahead of sadness.

Um...Mercer? Haven't seen you in nearly a month. I was expecting something like, 'Oh Cross, love of my heart, fire of my loins, how I've longed--

I see art in everything. Your shoes. That car. This coffee cup. It's art if you see it as art.

The body is the outermost layer of the mind.

Could there be a snare in too much beauty? Could there be too much expectation of good, and too much fiath? Could ever there be too much love?And could love require lies?

I don't think that the reality of Cuba is perfect, but it doesn't cleave to the negativity, either, with which some people see it.

People who are too fastidious towards the finite never reach actuality, but linger in abstraction, and their light dies away.

We need to aggressively take on radical Islamic terrorism but not at the expense of our American values.

You don’t have the slightest idea of what it means to write a scene and a character in the English language, with images and words chock full of received meaning.

I set out to try to help my fellow man and to do what little I could to make the world a better place.