We're all vanishing organisms and disappearing creatures in space and time - that death sentence in space in time that Kafka talked about with such profundity.

The conversation with the dead is one of the great pleasures of life. Somebody who is sitting reading Chekhov, Beckett, reading Toni Morrison - you are not in any way dead, in many ways you are intensely alive.

You can't have a high-quality relationship without time and without trust.

For me music is central, so when one's talking about poetry, for the most part Plato's talking primarily about words, where I talk about notes, I talk about tone, I talk about timbre, I talk about rhythms.

Poor people and working people have not been the focus of the Obama administration. That for me is not just a disappointment but a kind of betrayal.

The powerful have no monopoly on greed, hatred, fear, or ignorance.

If you can't have a good time and smile and relate to people across race and class, then the success that you have ultimately is just sounding brass and tinkling symbol.