In the rural South, the only interesting people were the sexual deviants. Everybody else was able to be part of the mainstream, and could find a way somehow.

I never take pictures. Skies are much larger in reminiscences and my friends are much better-looking. Photos crop reality into little squares; instead, I have very good binoculars.

I'd say it's never a challenge to present white and heteronormative privilege. The hard thing is to write any other way.

There are terrible things that never get easier, and there are things even more terrible that get easier with time and repetition.

My social status in the last year has gone from zero to hero.

I wanted to hear my own whispers in the next room and know that I was thinking of me.

The interesting artists I know are the ones doing political work. The most interesting people I know are the people who care about politics.

I'm enough of an anarchist aesthetically, when it comes to art - I want people to be reading my stuff voluntarily. They should be doing it because they want to.

People wanted to get me published, and my early work was so weird that they weren't getting anywhere. I thought, okay, I'll do something that's just a tad more normal.

I really like writing in English, and it's the best job I've ever had.

Lee explained to her that art for art’s sake is an upper-class aesthetic. To create art divorced from any purpose, you can’t be living a life driven by need and desire.

May you be of service to mankind.

When humans were young, they were pushed around in strollers. When they were old, they were pushed around in wheelchairs. In between, they were just pushed around.

All we can hope for is that he will fall into the ocean with a bar of soap in his pocket.

When you think about President Obama, he gives the president of China a five-star dinner at the White House. When somebody rips me off I don't give them five star dinners.

Of course you know him. Everyone knows a pear-shaped man.

Americans need not fear the federal government because they enjoy the advantage of being armed, which you possess over the people of almost every other nation.

A Spaniard will seek to persuade you that the bull-ring is an institution got up chiefly for the benefit of the bull.

The survival of American democracy depends less on the size of its armies than on the capacity of its individual citizens to rely... on the strength of their own thought.

Though laughter is allowable, a horse-laugh is abominable.

Ultimately, clean lines have greater longevity, which women appreciate, and to which they can add their own personality