Consensual reality is both fragile and elastic, and it heals like the skin of a bubble.

Nerds are just deep, and neurotic, fans. Needy fans. We're all nerds, on one subject or another.

Apparently Brooklyn needn't always push itself to be something else, something conscious and anxious, something pointed toward Manhattan.... Brooklyn might sometimes also be pleased, as here on Flatbush, to be its grubby, enduring self.

I prefer old books and find them more relevant. I dislike new books. It's like drinking wine that's not ready.

What age is a black boy when he learns he's scary?

I don't want to indulge myself in the luxury of writing beautiful paragraphs just for the sake of making beautiful writing. That doesn't interest me. I want everything to be essential.

When the civil rights battle was won, all the Jews and hippies and artists were middle class white people and all the blacks were still poor. Materially, not much changed.