The states of birth, suffering, love, and death, are extreme states: extreme, universal, and inescapable. We all know this, but we would rather not know it. The artist is present to correct the delusions to which we are all prey in our attempts to avoid this knowledge." - James Baldwin, "The Creative Process

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be

I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.

After my best friend jumped off the bridge, I knew that I was next. So-Paris. With forty dollars and a one-way ticket.

The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the moment we break faith with one another, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out.

To defend oneself against a fear is simply to insure that one will, one day, be conquered by it; fears must be faced.

The young think that failure is the Siberian end of the line, banishment from all the living, and tend to do what I then did - which was to hide.