Twice in his life Eugene Victor Debs took the long leap to the Ultima Thule of prison, passing beyond the realm of the acceptable into the nonacceptable, from respectability into the criminal community of the monster who was an enemy to the people.

The first poem I ever wrote, about loss, when I was 5 years old, expressed the themes of everything I would ever write.

I never fantasized or invented a thing, not one thing. I knew every single thing I ever wrote about.

I never thought of myself as either a woman or a man. I thought of myself as a person who was born to a writer, who was doomed to be a writer.

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

When you have examined all the illusions of life and know that there isn't any reality, but you nevertheless go on, then you are a mature human being. You accept the idea that it is all mask and illusion and that people are in disguise. You see the crumbl

Don't blindly follow any leader.