There is something more - the spirit, or the soul. I think that that quality encourages our courtesy and care and our minds. And mercy, and identity.

The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach.

My mother raised me, and then freed me.

We really are 15 countries, and it's remarkable that each of us thinks we represent the real America. The Midwesterner in Kansas, the black American in Durham - both are certain they are the real American.

We love and lose in China, we weep on England's moors, and laugh and moan in Guinea, and thrive on Spanish shores. We seek success in Finland, are born and die in Maine. In minor ways we differ, in major we're the same.

Try, start always at home. This is my encouragement to all writers, start at home. All virtues and vices begin at home, and then spread abroad.

I'm a spring leaf trembling in anticipation.