My friend Ronald Gottesman says...that the cause of all our trouble is the belief in an essential, pure identity: religious, ethnic, historical, ideological.

What I've come to learn is that the world is never saved in grand messianic gestures, but in the simple accumulation of gentle, soft, almost invisible acts of compassion.

You know, you can steel your heart against any kind of trouble, any kind of horror. But the simple act of kindness from a complete stranger will unstitch you.

In this time of the Internet and nonfiction, to be on an actual bookshelf in an actual bookstore is exciting in itself.

What we know about who we are comes from stories. It's the agents of our imagination who really shape who we are.

The privilege of being a writer is that you have this opportunity to slow down and to consider things.

People think that writing is writing, but actually writing is editing. Otherwise, you're just taking notes

You can count on Scandinavian literature for a certain kind of darkness, a modern mythic style.

Men do communicate, often very directly, but women sometimes cannot accept how simple what we have to say is. We seldom play games--we aren't that sophisticated.

Before you speak, my friend, remember, a spiritual man contain his anger. Angry words are like slap in de face.

Time was the only variable in every equation of power and oppression--how long before the pot boiled over.

let me diefrom having being drunk onindigo skies, my liver...overflowing with stars.

You have not been put on earth for the devil to torment you, you have been put on this earth to torment the devil.

I'm interested in questions my son asks me, like, "Why do animals fight? Why do you have to leave us to go on the road?" Everything he asks gets me thinking.

Life continually teaches. We eventually catch on.

No artist knows in his own lifetime whether what he does will be the slightest good, because it takes at least seventy-five to a hundred years before the thing begins to sort itself out.

Human beings can be beautiful. If they are not beautiful it is entirely their own fault. It is what they do to themselves that makes them ugly.

I focus on details, either of the body, or of objects that represent gender, sexuality, and other themes.

She is not refined. She is not unrefined. She keeps a parrot

There was earth inside them, and they dug.

Adults in a free country should be able to smoke a joint if they want to.