I think people have come to expect that in artistic representation; that every work of art should be a work of extravagant hope.

The old and honorable American notion, that a person who works hard should be able to live in freedom and security, with dignity - seems to have taken on a secondary status.

If you want to explore a political idea in the highest possible way, you embody it in the personal, because that's something that no one can deny.

The demographics are changing - and so what? Citizenship is a question of certain agreed-upon values and that is that. Do we believe that? I think at heart we do.

I know what it feels like to be in that middle and lower-middle class, and feel like the culture is passing you by; it translates into a great sense of personal frustration that can then morph into political frustration.

For me, things were either very sullied or very pure, very controlled or very under-controlled.

I don't feel like I have the intelligence to really inhabit a consistently high level of prose.