There is secrecy and betrayal but that's more part and parcel of the kind of anguish that the people go through. And maybe that's modes of survival, rather than modes of consciousness.

For sometimes you can't help but crave some ruin in what you love.

It is 'where we are' that should make all the difference, whether we believe we belong there or not.

The truth, finally, is who can tell it.

As for what's the most challenging aspect of teaching, it's convincing younger writers of the importance of reading widely and passionately.

So my first book I had no experience having written a book, but each book is a little snapshot of who you are at that moment, accrued all through time, so I accept that.

In this difficult era the most valuable commodity is the unfailing turn of the hours and how they retrieve for us the known harbor of yesterday.

They're not parallel at all. They're my concerns, but how they're expressed particularly on the page is completely divorced from who I am in my street life.

Don’t sanctuaries become prisons, and vice versa, foremost in the mind?

Imagination might not be limitless. It's still tethered to the universe of what we know.

For at some point, each of us will be asked to embody what we feel and know.

They say Night is all black in the faceAll that glitters only adds to the graceNo attempt to success ever succeedsWithout one slogging through the blackened days"- Poem "The Beauty of Night

How am I supposed to believe you when you're obviously carrying a fake monogram Gucci Bag?

We have not really advertised Chicago internationally.

I spent part of my college years in a Marxist commune. I was not a Marxist. I wasn't even pretending to be one. I was a Marxist-in-law.

Not even identical twins can have the exact same experiences, and their brains are not wired the same way.

In the tennis world, there weren't a whole lot of Asians playing. You see it a little bit more now. The same can really be said for basketball.

If you had to work 14 hour days, Mondays to Fridays, then you have to keep Saturdays and Sundays sacred.

What can I say about this move? Nothing so I won't.

All thought is a feat of association; having what's in front of you bring up something in your mind that you almost didn't know you knew

There were only a few shepherds at the first Bethlehem. The ox and the donkey understood more of the first Christmas than the high priests in Jerusalem. And it is the same today.