A good writer cannot avoid having social consciousness. I don't mean this about small pieces of writing, but about a big book. If it's a big book, there has to be more than one undertow.

If you know anything about James Whitcomb Riley, you know that Little Orphan Annie is one of the most fantastic characters who ever lived in America before Charlie Chaplin.

Some of the poetic writers who insert passages of realism in their texts have no underlying philosophy to uphold them, and revert to realism.

I don't believe there can be a poetic novel without political consciousness. I have a strong political conscience.

All the books I have written have been one book, from the beginning.

Life has no beginning, middle or end.

I've been willing to go for years without publishing. That's been my career.