Most of the really good literature I've read in my life was political, meaning it was important - about something going on in the history of the world - or contemporary.

I have only to break into the tightness of a strawberry, and I see summer - its dust and lowering skies.

If you want to fly, you have to give up the things that weigh you down.

The function of freedom is to free someone else.

Don’t beg anybody for anything, especially love.

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race - scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct... it has a social function, racism.

There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.

In times of dread, artists must never choose to remain silent.

All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was.

Oppressive language does more than represent violence; it is violence; does more than represent the limits of knowledge; it limits knowledge.

An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture

Serenity within the chaos of life is there to be discovered, just look within yourself for it.

I start every day making sure I'm where I need to be and thinking like I need to think.

Thus Pyrrhonism is not a sect of people who are persuaded of what they say, but it is a sect of liars.

People fall down, winners get up, and gold medal winners just get up faster!

I'm sure fame is yet to come; however, it's not my ultimate goal. I really just want to be able to tell stories, and create, and do it for a living.

I became a set designer for opera.

I support equality. Everyone should feel free to live out the parts of their personality that correspond to the classic male or female image.

Without art there is no hope.

Just as there are no little people or unimportant lives, there is no insignificant work.