Of our hurts we make monuments of survival. If we survive.

After my parents passed away - in 2000 and 2003 - I felt I could take the time to think about the past and imagine what it would have been like to be my grandmother.

My self is all to me. I don't have any need of you.

Boxing is a celebration of the lost religion of masculinity all the more trenchant for its being lost.

I always tell my students the same thing. And that's to live life, and to read very voraciously without any definite program. To travel, to meet people, to talk to people, to listen very carefully, and not interrupt, but listen to their own grandparents speak of their families.

Detroit, my 'great' subject, made me the person I am, consequently the writer I am - for better or worse.

The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.