You could grow up in the city where history was made and still miss it all.

Some people have things written all over their faces; the big guy had a couple of words misspelled in crayon on his.

The computer is the way I'm making books, but I still think about the physical properties. I visualize the length of a book, the proportions of a book, in material terms.

Writing is a private discipline, in a field of companions.

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.

The arts and a belief in the values of the civil rights movement, in the overwhelming virtue of diversity, these were our religion. My parents worshipped those ideals.

Fantastic writing in English is kind of disreputable, but fantastic writing in translation is the summit.