I always individuate myself from other writers who say they would die if they couldn't write. For me, I'd die if I couldn't read.

Books are wonderful, but they aren't that powerful.

When she smiles niggers ask her for her hand in marriage; when I smile folks check their wallets.

Ybon was the one who suggested calling the wait something else. Yeah, like what? Maybe, she said, you could call it life.

I am a chatty person, but colossally discreet.

Sadness at being caught, at the incontrovertibe knowledge that she will never forgive you.

Part of it is eight years of a black president, and white America still lost their [minds] about that. Part of it is a Republican politics of vicious, vicious partisan [stuff] that has completely poisoned what we would call the political rhetorical sphere. All of these things come together in a perfect storm.