There's something human that has to do with time and space and being who I am that is in progress and always will be in progress. And who I am, on different days, different moments, depends on different aspects of my past.

As a writer, you don't know what the hell you're doing. You're just doing it. You hope it works out well.

I'm still divided in my principles and what I think is right and what I'm actually able to do, whether talking about writing or being a citizen or being a husband or being a father. And I'm trying to get better.

If Mumia Abu-Jamal has nothing important to say, why are so many powerful people trying to shut him up?

If I had only a negative side of things to present, I think I would have much less of a drive to do it. Because what would be the point?

Books are an attempt to control something that's uncontrollable.

Kids use words in ways that release hidden meanings, revel the history buried in sounds. They haven't forgotten that words can be more than signs, that words have magic, the power to be things, to point to themselves and materialize. With their back-formations, archaisms, their tendency to play the music in words--rhythm, rhyme, alliteration, repetition--children peel the skin from language. Words become incantatory. Open Sesame. Abracadabra. Perhaps a child will remember the word and will bring the walls tumbling down.