Toni Morrison seems to have a lot of faith in people - that's what I mean by gentle power.

According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.

In my personal and spiritual life, I reject that. I don't believe in that. I'm always trying to get my mind into a less judgmental place, making less rigid judgments about things like "perverse" versus "pure." But in terms of prose, those sorts of oppositions seem to work.

I'd just say that truth is power and vice versa.

I would kind of, you know, go stand next to some unlucky guy and say eventually, Hi, I'm George. You know, I'm with The New Yorker. I'm a liberal. I'm somewhat left of Gandhi. Do you want to talk? And, you know, they always did.

She said America was a spoiled child ignorant of grief.

I'm not a natural criticizer - I prefer to like and praise and so on.