We're surrounded by mandates, and I believe that literature should be mandate-free. I feel very strongly about that.

I don't understand how any good art could fail to be political.

The way I see it, a person isn't nothing more than a scarecrow... The only difference between one that stands up good and one that blows over is what kind of a stick they're stuck up there on.

Many of us who aren't farmers or gardeners still have some element of farm nostalgia in our family past, real or imagined: a secret longing for some connection to a life where a rooster crows in the yard.

Mother could go for one year without food, but not one day without her lip sticks.

We're animals. We're born like every other mammal and we live our whole lives around disguised animal thoughts.

If you want sweet dreams, you've got to live a sweet life.