In the name of certainty, the greatest crimes have been committed against humanity.

Don't classify me, read me. I'm a writer, not a genre.

Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.

Writing is a struggle against silence.

The United States has written the white history of the United States. It now needs to write the black, Latino, Indian, Asian and Caribbean history of the United States.

Art gives life to what history killed. Art gives voice to what history denied, silenced, or persecuted. Art brings truth to the lies of history.

I need, therefore I imagine.

One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.

What's happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is one of the grossest violations of human rights under the Geneva Conventions that we have record of. It is simply monstrous.

Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.

You start by writing to live. You end by writing so as not to die.

Freedom is the realization that it is sufficient to simply be a human being.

Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired but by controlling the desire.

Money dignifies what is frivolous if unpaid for.

The urge to draw must be quite deep within us, because children love to do it.

When God wants to make a man, he puts him into some storm.

I have gotten more than I asked for. All that I ever wanted was to hear my voice on record and have a song among the Top 20.

We listen with deep interest to what we hear, for to man novelty is ever charming.

Pure love is the chief manifestation of education.

I do love poop. I can't help it. The heart wants what it wants. I enjoy being clever and pithy and political, but nothing's going to get me like dumb stuff.

I have a very small public.