Words may deeply wound us, but we must run that risk to be free.

His mother understood my illness immediately, that it was my world rather than myself that was diseased.

George W. Bush has gathered around him upper-crust C-students who know no history or geography.

The library is full of stories of supposed triumphs which makes me very suspicious of it. It's misleading for people to read about great successes, since even for middle-class and upper-class white people, in my experience, failure is the norm.

I am better now. Word of honour: I am better now.

Most writers are not quick-witted when they talk. Novelists, in particular, drag themselves around in society like gut-shot bears.

I'm a painter in my dreams, you know.