Hope is when you look out the window and you go, 'It doesn't look good at all, but I'm going to go beyond what I see to give people visions of what could be.'

I call the language of political figures, pundits and administrators "the haute couture of language."

I see myself first and foremost as a student of expression.

I never know when somebody's going to knock on the door of my own unconscious in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated.

I remember from my father's funeral that the minister kept using a metaphor about life of a prism. And I took that away like a cherished image.

Listening is not just hearing what someone tells you word for word. You have to listen with a heart. I don't want that to sound touchy-feely; it is not. It is very hard work.

Each person has a literature inside them.