Not even the most devastating truth can be told; it must be evoked.

There was a Greek philosopher who taught that, of all things, not to have been born is the sweetest state. But I believe sleep is the sweetest state. You're dead, yet alive. There's no sensation so exquisite.

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another's skin, another's voice, another's soul.

If food is poetry, is not poetry also food?

The American dream is a multi-metaphor made up of distinct regions. Many regions of this country are almost like different countries. Even in one state, northern and southern California are like two separate countries.

Like most people, I can be very easily hurt.

Ideas brush past fleeting and insubstantial as moths. But I let them go, I don't want them. What I want is a voice.