I was sand, I was snow—written on, rewritten, smoothed over.

Our generation in the west was lucky: we had readymade gateways. We had books, paper, teachers, schools and libraries. But many in the world lack these luxuries. How do you practice without such tryout venues?

Our problem right now is that we're so specialized that if the lights go out, there are a huge number of people who are not going to know what to do. But within every dystopia there's a little utopia.

By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you, I believe you're there, I believe you into being.

Every utopia - let's just stick with the literary ones - faces the same problem: What do you do with the people who don't fit in?

What a lost person needs is a map of the territory, with his own position marked on it so he can see where he is in relation to everything else.

You can examine the whole 19th century from the point of view of who would have maxed out their credit cards. Emma Bovary would have maxed hers out. No question. Mr. Scrooge would not have. He would have snipped his up.