We have elders who [are] misguided and wallowing around in troughs of money with the wrong sort. They're not really good elders for the youth to emulate. The youth rightly don't like them.

Helped are those who create anything at all, for they shall relive the thrill of their own conception and realize a partnership in the creation of the Universe that keeps them responsible and cheerful.

it is this broken road with pitfalls and sharp turns and unexpected traverses that has brought me joy and adventure.

Books became my world because the world I was in was very hard.

I'm not being disrespectful of the medium; it's just not as important as the work that I actually do [books].

I started writing as a child. But I didn't think of myself, actually writing until I was in college. And I had gone to Africa as a sophomore or something, no maybe junior and wrote a book of poems. And that was my beginning. I published that book.

I love us so incredibly, insanely deeply; it's almost unbearable to see what we do to ourselves.