Good talkers are people who use interesting language and have a lot of energy in speech and who also listen.

Waves, once they land on the beach, are not reversible.

Let us go forth with fear and courage and rage to save the world.

My mother went to demonstrations. I remember her going to a big demonstration for Earl Brower and she came home crying and said the Communists were very mean and booed their people. I remember feeling sad at her feeling sad.

I liked the education. I liked people learning things all around me and I liked going to people's classes.

My job is to get people to write something truthful, something about truth and beauty - wherever they are - and to understand how literature is made. And then if they become great writers, that's great, and probably has nothing to do with me.

I was fortunate that by the time I was born, there were a lot of comforts and at the same time I lived in a neighborhood where it was brought to my eyes every single day that people didn't live like me. Every day I knew that many of my friends "got relief." That was important in my thinking about the world, thinking that not everybody lived that way.