... suffering does not ennoble. It destroys. To resist destruction, self-hatred, or lifelong hopelessness, we have to throw off the conditioning of being despised, the fear of becoming the they that is talked about so dismissively, to refuse lying myths and easy moralities, to see ourselves as human, flawed, and extraordinary. All of us extraordinary

my life has been saved over and over again by picking up a book in which someone captured the whole experience of being despised and not dying.

I'll tell you the secret. When you begin with a character, you want to begin by creating a villain.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that I'd rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me.

It's important to set challenges that you're not sure you're equal to.

Class, race, sexuality, gender and all other categories by which we categorize and dismiss each other need to be excavated from the inside.

I can't write what I don't believe in.