If you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level any reflection of themselves

I feel most like myself... after I run - I go out for five miles every morning.

I've been trying to write. I also spent a lot of time on different campuses, in conversation, helping other writers. That's what I do: I teach them writing.

Love is the great test of the human. The human is tested by our ability to withstand love. Love is so difficult, it is so challenging, it demands of us that we wreck it with ourselves. It demands of us an honesty that few of us could sustain.

There's a long-term tradition of white supremacy in this country. [Donald] Trump isn't something entirely new. But then there is the crisis for white supremacy in this country now where you have people of color standing up for themselves in ways that they've never stood up for themselves or at least standing up for themselves in a generational, novel way.

I find reading to be a delight, a source of comfort, a way to explore.

I always wanted to read. I always thought I was going to be a historian. I would go to school and study history and then end up in law school, once, I ran out of loot trying to be a history high school teacher. But my dream was always to place myself in a situation where I was always surrounded by books.