Whenever I went to an historical moment that was sad or where something terrible happened, it was, for me, a learning moment, a teaching moment for those who survived.

People seem very comfortable having a kind of Cheesecake Factory-type of life.

I usually feel something before I know it.

If you're just mired in privilege, there's nothing to learn; learning appears to be over.

Bruce Lee, before he fought, he would try to visualize how the fight would go, because he was visualizing a victorious path out of the combat.

Because I write intuitively and image-by-image and moment-by-moment, my writing has to be powered by feelings and emotions.

I can't stay engaged for years with a book unless it has feelings. It can't be an idea for me - it has to be a felt thing.

Much of the visualizing is imaginative.

People were always hungry, bullied, afraid, paranoid - so I just thought I'd show that in the novel in a kind of suffocating way.

Magical realism as a declaration in the text is usually when someone can't speak and then they must be magically reinvigorated in some way.

I think poetry can lead to policy, and I can hear the laughter when I say that.

It is impossible to love someone you do not respect, but there can be mutual attraction without mutual respect.

Power revealed is power sacrificed. The truly powerful exert their influence in ways unseen, unfelt. Some would say that a thing visible is a thing vulnerable.

Deal with people from whom you can learn

Even Kings and emperors with heaps of wealth and vast dominion cannot compare with an ant filled with the love of God.

In this business, you gotta hustle.

Worry is the senseless process of cluttering up tomorrows opportunities with leftover problems from today

You're not so bad. You'll get there. You should have seen Alec do flips at first. I think he kicked himself in the head once.

They can't do without electricity. They can do with less electricity.

In complicated positions, Bobby Fischer hardly had to be afraid of anybody