...heaven wouldn’t be like this earth, this tormented earth ruled by evil forces that tossed humanity to and fro like a slow clown in a two-bit rodeo.

A slap from God is better than a handshake from the devil.

I've always giggled like a 13-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber meet and greet. There's nothing I can do about it but I've never not been able to stop.

There's no idea in the world that is not contained by black life. I could write forever about the black experience in America.

The world becomes more rewarding when you let yourself look beyond what you're searching for.

I am for an art that takes its form from the lines of life itself, that twists and extends and accumulates and spits and drips, and is heavy and coarse and blunt and sweet and stupid as life itself.

It is always your heaviest bore who is astonished at the tameness of modern celebrities: naturally; for a little of his company has reduced them to a state of flaccid fatigue.

But I wish to point out that it is entirely wrong to say that the Chinese are not religious.

If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose: The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.

I do call myself a feminist. Absolutely!

It was always late at night, when everything and everyone else was quiet, that those voices would rise like ghosts, soft and haunting, filling your mind until sleep finally came.