The United States condoned dictatorships in Latin America for much of the 20th century.

Don't classify me, read me. I'm a writer, not a genre.

Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me.

Writing is a struggle against silence.

The United States has written the white history of the United States. It now needs to write the black, Latino, Indian, Asian and Caribbean history of the United States.

Art gives life to what history killed. Art gives voice to what history denied, silenced, or persecuted. Art brings truth to the lies of history.

I need, therefore I imagine.

One wants to tell a story, like Scheherezade, in order not to die. It's one of the oldest urges in mankind. It's a way of stalling death.

What's happened at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is one of the grossest violations of human rights under the Geneva Conventions that we have record of. It is simply monstrous.

Literature overtakes history, for literature gives you more than one life. It expands experience and opens new opportunities to readers.

You start by writing to live. You end by writing so as not to die.

Do not ask for less responsibility to be free and relaxed--Ask for more strenght!

I've always been drawn to tormented people full of contradictions.

I think charter schools, choice, and frankly school standards need a champion.

If you have nothing in quantum mechanics, you will always have something.

Your character must be above suspicion and you must be truthful and self-controlled.

I send them my warmest encouragement to persevere in the patience and charity of Christ.

The only way I can distinguish proper from improper fractions is by their actions

The usual bad poem in somebody's Collected Works is a learned, mannered, valued habit, a habit a little more careful than, and little emptier than, brushing one's teeth.

Preservation of our environment is not a liberal or conservative challenge, it's common sense.

There are children with dreams counting on us.