If you're writing fiction, you're dealing with characters who, themselves, will have heartfelt sentiments but who, themselves, live in this culture right now and thus face all the impediments to sort of dealing with those parts of their lives that, you know, that we did. So it would be not only silly but unrealistic to have a character saying that kind of stuff.

It can become an exercise in trying to get the reader to like and admire you instead of an exercise in creative art.

Please learn the pragmatics of expressing fear: sometimes words that seem to express really invoke. This can be tricky.

Rap's conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride.

[T]o really try to be informed and literate today is to feel stupid nearly all the time, and to need help.

I don't want to hurt myself. I want to stop hurting.

My bones are ringing the way sometimes people say their ears are ringing, I'm so tired.