...I have come to make distinctions between what I call the academy and literature, the moral equivalents of church and God. The academy may lie, but literature tries to tell the truth.

What's the best thing you can do for your writing? Construct a boring life.

Twenty years after we had left so fierce and proud, we were all right back where we had started, yoked to each other and the same old drama.

I have a terrible memory.

I need you to do more than survive. As writers, as revolutionaries, tell the truth, your truth in your own way. Do not buy into their system of censorship, imagining that if you drop this character or hide that emotion, you can slide through their blockades. Do not eat your heart out in the hope of pleasing them.

I was born trash in a land where the people all believe themselves natural aristocrats.

It's fun to tease people about where fiction and life intersect.