For me, the beauty of the blank page, or empty screen,staring up at nine thirty after two cups of coffee and a deep breath remains unique. The blankness invites scribbling on, mental drawing , and the best feeling I know - apart from the more obvious sensual ones - is the feeling of putting down the first thought and seeing it turn into symbols. Making an idea into an emotion.

The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life.

I don't think there's any question journalists have become targets, but then I think that - that anyone who tries to practice liberty becomes a target of fanatics.

The coffee shop is a great New York institution, but it has terrible coffee. And the more traditional coffee shops are trying to catch up with more sophisticated coffee drinkers.

I don't miss the obligation to be opinionated, but I do regret the chance to share a joy.

Love, like light, is a thing that is enacted better than defined: we know it afterward by the traces it leaves on paper.

Someone once said that the joy is not in writing but in having written. I can't say I find that to be true, though I understand the sentiment.