Life seemed even more of a guessing game than usual.

History is that certainty produced at the point where the imperfections of memory meet the inadequacies of documentation.

Some of the freckles I once loved are now closer to liver spots. But it’s still the eyes we look at, isn’t it? That’s where we found the other person, and find them still.

Later on in life, you expect a bit of rest, don't you? You think you deserve it. I did, anyway. But then you begin to understand that the reward of merit is not life's business.

What you end up remembering isn't always the same as what you have witnessed.

Time...give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical.

And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time’s malleability.

May you be ordinary, as the poet once wished the new-born baby.

I thought of the things that had happened to me over the years, and of how little I had made happen.

Is there anything more plausible than a second hand?

you find yourself repeating, ‘They grow up so quickly, don’t they?’ when all you really mean is: time goes faster for me nowadays.

...always-the sharp, plaintive edgeon the rimof the spoonof my giving.(lines 8-13 of the poem 'Confessions')

I’m quite capable of walking,” she pointed out. It is faster this way. Your legs are short.” They are not!

I'm not so much a dragon slayer, more a dragon annoyer -- I'm a dragon irritater.

It is the writer’s job to make the play interesting. It is the actor’s job to make the performance truthful.

People with HIV are still stigmatized. The infection rates are going up. People are dying. The political response is appalling. The sadness of it, the waste.

The frustration of being marginalized often gets misdirected at the most visible members of one's own community, because they are more accessible than the real agents of marginalization.

I dig my heels in every now and then, and think 'I'm not going to do what's expected or what people think is the right thing.' So I have a little bit of that in my personality.

Of course there are peace-loving Muslims.

In my old age, my mind gets more open, and I listen to so many different types of music and I guess that all reflects in my work.

Prayer is a silent surrendering of everything to God.