Racism will disappear when it's no longer profitable, and no longer psychologically useful. And when that happens, it'll be gone. But at the moment, people make a lot of money off of it, pro and con.

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.

A person obsessed with ultimate truth is a person asking to be relieved of money.

The innocent curiosity of children gives them astounding courage.

If you marry a man who cheats on his wife, you'll be married to a man who cheats on his wife.

Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.

If people would just wake up to what's real, there would be no misery in the world. I guess chanting's a pretty good place to start.

Launching a new TV show is probably one of the most difficult things that a writer can do.

Derivatives are a huge, complex issue.

All you need is the courage to believe in yourself and put one foot in front of the other.

You see reality TV and it's not reality TV. It's contrived and everything is plotted and scripted nearly. Documentaries are the same and just as bad.

If you bear the cross unwillingly, you make it a burden, and load yourself more heavily; but you must bear it.