Probably nothing serious or worthwhile can be accomplished without one's willingness to be alone for sustained periods of time, which is not to say that one must live alone, obsessively.

Memory blurs, that's the point. If memory didn't blur you wouldn't have the fool's courage to do things again, again, again, that tear you apart.

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.

I never change, I simply become more myself.

How lovely this world is, really: one simply has to look.

Our enemy is by tradition our savior, in preventing us from superficiality.

Read widely, and without apology. Read what you want to read, not what someone tells you you should read.

Night comes to the desert all at once, as if someone turned off the light.

Keep a light, hopeful heart. But ­expect the worst.

See, people come into your life for a reason. They might not know it themselves, why. You might not know it. But there's a reason. There has to be

Be your own editor/critic. Sympathetic but merciless!

You lie awake at 3 in the morning thinking of story ideas. You're online at 8 a.m. on a Sunday or midnight on a Wednesday. It's a job that you never push aside.

Dont run before you can walk

A garden is a kinetic work of art, not an object but a process, open-ended, biodegradable, nurturant, like all women's artistry. A garden is the best alternative therapy.

It rankles me when somebody tries to force somebody to do something.

I think God rarely gives to one man, or one set of men, more than one great moral victory to win.

Hip-Hop got turned into Hit Pop, The second a record was number one on the pop charts. But don't skip on the heart, it gotta start in the ghetto, Let no one forget about the hard part.

Art was always for me an escape and a way to relate to the world around me.

Never make a fuss-it might attract the attention of an enemy tribe.

Teaching seems to me beyond doubt the greatest of the professions.

Or a White Englishman would rather smash a White Frenchman than a Jew! Crazy!